Behind the scenes images of the final Hubble servicing mission
Photographer Michael Soluri was granted unprecedented access to document the people and events behind the final Hubble Space Telescope Servicing Mission 4, STS-125, which launched in 2009. He has published these images in a new book, "Infinite Worlds: People & Places of Space Exploration." Soluri has provided Universe Today with an exclusive gallery of images from the book, and also told us about his experiences in being able to follow for three years the behind the scenes lead-up to the mission.
Read his account and see more images below.
From a very early age following the space program and over the decades as a documentary photographer on location at various NASA flight centers, I always felt something was missing: an honest, unscripted visual sense of the people behind the scenes that make human and robotic space flight possible.
Yes, it's always inspiring to experience and photograph a rocket launch with remote equipment or from 3 miles away. However, the access pattern over time has been the same. Writers and photographers herded together into controlled situations that in the end capture the same shot. Given security issues, this is understandable and the results over the decades are predictable.
To achieve the results experienced in Infinite Worlds required earning the trust of both the crew as well as Hubble and shuttle flight management. That trust contributed to being asked by the STS-125 crew to coach them in making better more visually communicative images of their experiences at Hubble. It also enabled me to be a part of and be accepted into the many worlds of that mission during good times and challenging ones.
The edited results comprise my book and exhibitions. Looking back on that journey, I am humbled by the mutual respect and trust extended to me by a remarkable, "made in the USA" labor force that for the most part no longer exists.
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K. Megan McArthur (PH.D.), the STS-125 Hubble SM4 Robotic Arm engineer during final servicing mission to Hubble, May 2009. Credit: Michael Soluri -
Office white-board of Mark Turczyn, HST Senior Systems Engineer. Credit: Michael Soluri -
Christy Hansen, EVA Task Lead and STS-125 SM4 astronaut Drew Feustel in cargo bay of Atlantis in July 2008. Credit: Michael Soluri -
Four of the 鈥渟pace-walking鈥� astronauts and their mission trainers reviewing one of the tool boxes they will be accessing in the cargo bay of the shuttle during the last service mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. Credit: Michael Soluri -
Atlantis just after roll out and pad lock down at Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center for the STS-125 Hubble Servicing Mission. March 31, 2009. Credit: Michael Soluri -
Self Portrait by John Grunsfeld and shuttle Atlantis on the Hubble Space Telescope 鈥� orbiting Earth. Credit: Michael Soluri
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