The Hubble telescope being repaired.
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NASA

NASA to Replace Hubble Telescope Instrument - Just BeCOS...
News story originally written on August 18, 1997

Well not exactly just because. Edward Weiler, HST program scientist, said that NASA has chosen to include the COS instrument aboard the Hubble Space Telescope because "it will allow astronomers to study the very early Universe and the creation of the heavy elements during the first period of star formation billions of years ago." COS stands for Cosmic Origins Spectrograph.

The instrument is scheduled to be installed late in 2002 during Hubble's fourth servicing mission. The COS is expected to be a premiere HST instrument into the first decade of the next century. The estimated cost of this state-of-the-art spectrograph is $25 million. NASA is working on a contract for the new instrument with Dr. James Green of the University of Colorado, Boulder.

The Hubble Space Telescope, a 2.4 meter reflecting telescope, continues to make astronomical observations while in low-Earth orbit.

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