Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 29, 1990 TAG: 9006290787
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A/4 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
An official of Hughes Danbury Optical Co., which manufactured the mirrors, said Thursday night that experiments with signals from the Hubble have confirmed that a mistake was made in the tedious three-year process of making the primary and secondary Hubble mirrors.
"With fairly high certainty, we have concluded that . . . the shape of one of the mirrors is not correct," said Terence Facey, a Hughes Danbury engineer who helped NASA isolate the source of the Hubble focusing problem.
He said it was not known which mirror is flawed, but that may be discovered by searching the Connecticut company's records of tests conducted during the months of grinding and polishing required to turn foot-thick, spherical glass blanks into the telescope mirrors.
Two senators who oversee the space program, meanwhile, reacted angrily to news of the Hubble focusing flaw and ordered hearings on the mistake.
"I'm very outraged at what has happened to Hubble," said Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md. "They have had 10 years to put this together and spent $2.8 billion to be able to get it right.
"Now we find that the Hubble telescope has a cataract," she said.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has said the telescope cost $1.5 billion, plus $600 million for operations and maintenance.
Sen. Albert Gore, D-Tenn., chairman of the Senate subcommittee on science, technology and space, called a hearing on the Hubble problem for today, with NASA's chief scientist, Lennard Fisk, as the lead witness.
Mikulski said she and Rep. Bob Traxler, D-Mich., also plan an investigation.
NASA engineers discovered the focusing flaw in Hubble after they were unable to coax the telescope into capturing crisp, clean photos of distant stars.
Facey said he assisted the space agency in the tests and helped to confirm that the problem was in one of the two mirrors. It was a tough job, he said in a telephone interview. "It's always difficult to conclude that you've made a mistake."
Meanwhile, The New York Times reported in today's editions that NASA decided against using top-secret, ground-based military testing equipment that likely would have detected the problem before the Hubble was launched. The Times quoted a scientist involved in the agency's deliberations, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
by CNB