The Honorable Bill Frist
U.S. Senate Majority Leader
United States Senate
461 Dirksen Building
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Senator Frist:

IEEE-USA strongly supports the recent decision of NASA and the recommendations contained in the report by the National Academies dated July 13, 2004 to commit to a servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope that accomplishes the objectives of the originally planned SM-4 mission, including both the replacement of the present instruments with the two instruments already developed for flight-the Wide Field Camera-3 and the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph, and the engineering objectives, such as gyroscope and battery replacements.

Since its launch by the space shuttle Discovery on 25 April 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has provided astronomers and humanity with a unique Space Asset to support NASA's mission to "explore the Universe and search for life." The Hubble telescope has supported this objective by providing fundamental new results in planetary science; discovery of the most distant object in the solar system; more accurate estimates of the age of the universe; better measurements of the universe's rate of expansion; the deepest portrait of the visible universe ever achieved by humankind; the discovery of new stars and dynamic phenomena in space; and new views of comets and black holes.

Unless repairs are made to Hubble's batteries and gyroscopes, the observatory will likely become inoperable as early as 2008. The successor to HST, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is not expected to be launched until 2011 and may be delayed substantially. Also, the JWST will be situated nearly a million miles from earth in an orbit around the sun, making repairs and/or upgrades impossible. Since 1990, astronauts have serviced the HST approximately every three (3) years, replacing gyroscopes, electronic boxes and other limited-life items, installing new science instruments, and using the shuttle propulsion system to provide an orbit altitude boost. This serviceability and upgradeability make keeping the HST preferable to relying completely on a flawless launch and continuous operation of the JWST with no alternative means for deep space data collection in the event of technical problems with the JWST.

In addition, as the August 2003 report by the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton reports, the data collected from the JWST will differ significantly from that collected by the HST. The JWST will be better equipped for seeing the longer wavelengths of infrared light collected from more distant objects in the universe. The HST, on the other hand, is better at collecting the shorter wavelengths of light emitted by closer objects. For this reason, the NASA-commissioned panel recommended that operation of the two telescopes overlap.

Again, we commend NASA for its commitment to extending the working life of the Hubble Space Telescope, and we are encouraged that concerns of the scientific and engineering communities have been heard on this matter. IEEE-USA is an organizational unit of the IEEE. It was created in 1973 to advance the public good and promote the careers and public-policy interests of the more than 225,000 technology professionals who are U.S. members of the IEEE. The IEEE is the world's largest technical professional society. For more in formation, go to http://www.ieeeusa.org or contact Bill Williams at 202-785-0017.

Sincerely,

John W. Steadman, Ph.D., P.E.
2004 IEEE-USA President

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