Why does hubble have a radio antenna?

Answer 1

We're going to assume that you're referring to the "Hubble Space Telescope".

For the answer, you have to go back all the way to 1990, and the last moments before

the Space Shuttle Discovery was launched carrying the Hubble Telescope in its cargo bay.

It was a great day. After almost 20 years in planning, design, and construction, the mighty

scope was ready for orbit, to observe and photograph cosmic phenomena undreamed

of by the millenia of philosophers and scientists whose brilliance had given us virtually

everything we knew about the universe until then. At last, the Hubble was ready to

shuffle off this gaseous coil, to observe and photograph the wonders of this Universe

with an eye unsullied by atmosphere, and a clarity seen by none but their Maker as He

wrote the first paragraphs of Genesis.

The countdown was in its final stages. The Shuttle's crew were belted into their

restraints, the chatter on the Capcom rising in pitch and excitement, the vast

clouds of condensate wafting from the huge external fuel tank in the pre-dawn

twilight as only clouds of condensate can waft, the unsuspecting shorebirds

beginning to stir on their roosts throughout the wetlands of the Cape, rubbing

the sleep out of their beaks unaware of the fire and thunder scheduled to terrify

them in only moments. The countdown, seemingly irresistible and proceeding now

by its own independent will, pulsing toward the single digits, and then . . . . .

A human figure, dwarfed by the towering rocket ship and shadowed in the darkness

on the ground, running, arms waving, screaming, "HOLD THE COUNTDOWN ! STOP

THE LAUNCH ! STOP THE LAUNCH !".

One more millisecond would surely have been too late, but it worked. For whatever

reason, the process was suspended. At the Launch Control consoles, a hundred

red plungers were mashed by an equal number of sweaty palms, a hundred circuits

broke, whereupon condensate ceased its wafting, and a thousand spectator voices

descended as one from among the bulrushes with a unison "AWWWWWWWWWW ...".

The Pad Police quickly had the shadowy figure in custody and whisked him away to

an underground locker room, where he was restrained until officials could be brought in

to interrogate him. He was an engineer, one, in fact, who had worked on the Hubble

project for almost 13 years. Although the fact of his identity as an engineer was quite

enough, not to excuse but to completely explain his apparent total insanity, and more,

he protested that he had an urgent message for them, information pertinent to the launch,

and the more they listened, the more convinced they became that they must listen to this man.

He had been at home this night, sleeping fitfully, when suddenly he sat bolt upright in

his bed as if shocked at every synapse by simultaneous lightning bolts, then leaping

like a madman out of his bed, through his pants and into his shoes, he sprinted to

his car and made straight for the highway toward the Florida coast and the launch

complex, scarce stopping to breathe for the next four hours, until he reached the

Cape with not a moment to spare.

Of all the thousands who had worked overtime, dedicating all that they had to give,

for the success of the Hubble project, this man was the only one to finally realize ...

almost too late ... that they rushed headlong toward a climax which, no matter how

successful, might avail them totally naught. Though the Hubble instrument was poised

to collect images heretofore unseen by any eye, they would stay that way, unless

some means were provided for some eyes to see them ... a provision which, in their

dedication and haste, these absent minded minions had overlooked. There was no

subsystem aboard the payload that was designed to transport the images from the

telescope's orbit to the places where the scientists were. Indeed, there was not even

a mechanism capable of delivering the exposed film to the drugstore.

But now, to avoid allowing the story to grow any longer than it must, we only add

that the collected brain-power available to the project was such that a solution was

proposed and implemented almost immediately. The ham operaters at the launch

complex had a design in moments, the machinists built the mounts only a few moments

later, and the electronics specialists had only to wait until the Coca Beach Radio Shack

opened a few hours later, before they too had their part of the solution implemented.

A radio link was constructed and installed in an unused corner aboard the Hubble,

to beam the stream ... of data, that is ... from the spacecraft to the earthbound

dishes, where it could be read to reconstruct the photos.

The radio antenna you see attached to the side of the Hubble Space Telescope is

the gate through which pictures have poured for over 20 years now, sending for our

wondrous eyes such images as man never before beheld. And as an incidental bonus,

the same team realized, soon after launch, that the same radio link would make it

possible for them to command and control the telescope, directing it to do their bidding,

look where they wanted it to look, go where they wanted it to go, doing the work

that they themselves would do if only they could be there. This lucky accident has

turned out to be the main reason why the Hubble has been so useful, and has

become such a scientific and technical legend in its own time.