HUBBLE TELESCOPE REPAIRS SURPRISED THE SPACE SHUTTLE ATLANTIS CREW

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., May 20 (Reuters) - Years of training didn't prepare the shuttle Atlantis astronauts for the problems encountered during NASA's final servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope, the crew said on Wednesday.

















Hubble's troubles surprised shuttle crew

* Shuttle Atlantis due back in Florida on Friday

* Scientist laments loss of satellite repair capability

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., May 20 (Reuters) - Years of training didn't prepare the shuttle Atlantis astronauts for the problems encountered during NASA's final servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope, the crew said on Wednesday.

With the refurbished telescope back in orbit, the seven shuttle astronauts took some time off and began preparing for Friday's homecoming at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

"It's amazing looking back at how hard things looked a couple of times -- more difficult than I ever expected -- and then to overcome and wind up with everything done in the way that it was. We were very successful," Atlantis commander Scott Altman told reporters during an in-flight news conference on Wednesday.

The crew conducted five spacewalks, fraught with unexpected problems, to outfit the 19-year-old Hubble with two new science instruments, fresh batteries, six positioning gyroscopes and other gear.

They also worked on two broken cameras that were never intended to be repaired in space, let alone by astronauts wearing the bulky gloves and pressurized suits needed for spacewalks.

During one spacewalk, astronaut Michael Massimino ripped off a handrail when a single bolt prevented him from unscrewing it as planned so he could reach the telescope's broken light-splitting spectrograph for repairs.

"Whoever it is down there at the Goddard Space Flight Center who figured out that we could just yank that handle off, I owe you one," Massimino said.

Atlantis' flight is NASA's fifth and final servicing mission to Hubble before the shuttle fleet is retired next year.

END OF SATELLITE SERVICING

Being able to service satellites in orbit is "one of the valuable things NASA has learned how to do," Hubble project scientist David Leckrone said. "It just makes me want to cry to think that this is the end of it."

"There is no person out there, no leadership out there, there's no vision out there to pick up the baton that we're about to hand off and carry it forward. And I think that's just a shame, to abandon one of the most impressive, refined, sophisticated capabilities that this agency as a whole, human side and robotics side, has achieved," Leckrone said.

Atlantis astronaut John Grunsfeld said NASA would continue to develop the ability of astronauts to work on machines in space in the International Space Station program and in the proposed lunar exploration initiative to follow. NASA plans to have a new ship ready to ferry astronauts to the space station by 2015, and return to the moon by 2020.

"As much as we love low-Earth orbit, it's time to leave and go out and explore the cosmos," Grunsfeld said.

The shuttle crew is preparing to wrap up its 11-day mission with a landing on Friday at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Wary of storms moving across the peninsula, however, NASA told the astronauts to turn off unneeded equipment and save power in case their landing is delayed.

Also on Wednesday, NASA started the countdown for a potential rescue mission in case a final inspection of Atlantis' heat shield, which was conducted on Tuesday by astronauts but is still being analyzed by a ground control team, turns up any problems. The shuttle Endeavour will remain on standby until Atlantis leaves orbit.

"From our vantage point, we think it's probably looking very good for entry (into the atmosphere) and we're looking forward to that," Altman said.