roberts@iisat.uucp (Greg Roberts) (07/04/90)
The title says it all. I called NASA Affairs and got the time of the press
briefing. I posted a message last week, but apparently it bombed. The upshot
is that someone asked for a transcript, so over the long weekend here in
CanadaLand, I transcribed the beast. I will now be able to post it, I suspect
in two parts. It is quite long. The most detailed part of the four presen-
tations was by Ed Weiler, who gave the impact analysis of the various science
experiments and the solution(it is deceptively easy). It is fourteen written
pages in length, so that is why I suggest two parts.
Briefly, UV is basically unaffected. They have a half wave of spherical
aberation, a new WFPC system with corrective optics is now in the works at JPL
and another platform is being developed to give IR capability. The mirror can
be altered in figure somewhat, but the actuators were designed to move the
mirror in the weaker planes to correct for coma and astigmatism, thus they
will not be able to move the mirror enough to take out more than a bit of the
SA since that is motion in the stiffest plane of the mirror.
Overall, the briefing was reasonably positive. Weiler said there was a lot of
frustrations amongst the science teams, but no one quit since the fix is
essentially replacing a relay mirror on each instruments like the WFPC, the
FOS and the HRS. While the outlook for the near term is bleak, my feeling
is that in the short term, other types of science will press on, with perhaps
less hassel from the visible folks, and we will undoubtably be treated to
some pretty awesome sights yet.
Clear skies to us ground based astronomers, and good luck to the STScI.
--
Greg Roberts International Information Service (IIS)
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