Kyle Herring/Don Savage

Headquarters, Washington Feb. 7, 2002

(Phone: 202/358-4504/1727)

Eileen Hawley
Johnson Space Center, Houston
(Phone: 281/483-5111)

NOTE TO EDITORS: N02-11

SHUTTLE MISSION TO SERVICE HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE

SUBJECT OF FEB. 15 PRESS BRIEFINGS

The fourth Space Shuttle mission devoted to upgrade and

enhancement of the 12-year-old Hubble Space Telescope (HST)
will be previewed during a series of press briefings
beginning at 9 a.m. EST Friday, Feb. 15. The daylong program
of briefings will air live on NASA Television from NASA's
Johnson Space Center, Houston, and from NASA Headquarters,
Washington.

Seven astronauts will climb aboard Columbia Feb. 28 to embark

on an 11-day mission to replace Hubble's solar arrays, power
switching station and one of four primary pointing devices,
and to install powerful new optical instrument called the
Advanced Camera for Surveys. This camera will provide
astronomers with about 10 times the discovery capability of
the Wide Field Planetary Camera currently operating in
Hubble.

Additionally, on one of the five planned spacewalks, the crew

will revive a key infrared instrument that has been dormant
since 1999 by installing an experimental cooling system and
an associated radiator.

The briefings will focus on Columbia's STS-109 and Hubble

missions, Hubble science, the five spacewalks and the crew
news conference. The briefing schedule follows.

Following the crew news conference, round-robin interviews

with the astronauts will be available to reporters at JSC and
to those who make phone arrangements in advance. Reporters
interested in participating should call the JSC newsroom at
281/483-5111 by 1 p.m. EST Thursday, Feb. 14. The round-robin
interviews will not be broadcast on NASA TV.
NASA Television is available on GE-2, Transponder 9C, at 85
degrees West longitude, vertical polarization, with a
frequency of 3880 MHz, and audio of 6.8 MHz.
-end-

STS-109 PREFLIGHT BRIEFING SCHEDULE (all times EST)

8:30 a.m. -- STS-109 preflight briefing supporting video (19-

min. runtime)

9:00-10:30 a.m. -- Mission Overview, JSC

Phil Engelauf, STS-109 Mission Director
Bryan Austin, STS-109 Lead Flight Director

10:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m. -- HST Project Overview, Headquarters

Anne Kinney, Director, Astronomy and Physics Division, NASA
Headquarters
Preston Burch, HST Program Manager, NASA Goddard Space Flight
Center (GSFC), Greenbelt, Md.

12:00 p.m. -- Video File, Headquarters

12:30 p.m.-1:30 p.m. -- HST Science Overview, Headquarters

Ed Weiler, Associate Administrator, Office of Space Science,
Headquarters
Dave Leckrone, HST Project Scientist, GSFC
Holland Ford, Principal Investigator, Advanced Camera for
Surveys
Ed Cheng, Lead Scientist, NICMOS Cooling System

1:30 p.m.-3:00 p.m. -- STS-109 Extravehicular Activity

Overview, JSC
Dana Weigel, STS-109 Lead EVA Officer, JSC

3:00 p.m.-4:00 p.m. -- STS-109 Crew News Conference, JSC

Scott Altman, Commander
Duane Carey, Pilot
John Grunsfeld, Mission Specialist 1, Payload Commander
Nancy Currie, Mission Specialist 2
Rick Linnehan, Mission Specialist 3
Jim Newman, Mission Specialist 4
Mike Massimino, Mission Specialist 5