Insects scope out the Hubble; NASA hopes they'll bug off

Midges may delight fly fishermen looking for freshwater trout, but NASA has little use for the mosquitolike insects when they gather near its ultra-clean, $1.55 billion Hubble Space Telescope.

The space agency Tuesday postponed until Thursday the transfer of the 25,000 pound, 43-foot telescope from a launch-pad clean room to the shuttle Discovery's payload bay so technicians could trap several dozen of the pesky insects that threatened to foul the Hubble's sensitive optics and electronics.

"Insects are just part of the environment down here that you have to deal with," said spokesman George Diller at NASA's Kennedy Space Center on Cape Canaveral, Fla., the shuttle's launch site. "They are great for fly fishermen, but not us.' After calling in an entomologist for help, telescope engineers hoped to carefully resume preparations for the Hubble's transfer early today.

Diller said the midge problem has not altered plans to launch Discovery, its five astronauts and the space telescope on April 12.

In fact, there is a good chance the launch will be moved up to April 10, he said. Top shuttle program officials will make that decision on Saturday following a two-day review of launch preparations.

The midge problem surfaced Sunday when engineers transported the Hubble several miles from Kennedy's vertical payload processing facility to the payload change-out room on the launch pad.

The six-story change-out room is in a massive, elevated rotating structure that is moved to the payload bay doors of the shuttle orbiter while it is on the launch pad. It is not swiveled away until the final hours of the countdown.

When the Hubble arrived at the pad on Sunday, technicians noticed the winged insects attached to the outside of Discovery's payload bay doors and removed many with a vacuum device. Some midges made their way into the change-out room, however, forcing NASA to seek expert help.

Technicians installed five traps in the room Monday night and placed a shroudlike protective cover on the telescope that keeps it clean, cool and dry.

With the lights out, the traps reduced the midge population by 37 insects Tuesday. The traps consist of a light at the top to attract the insects, a fan to suck them in and dry ice to kill them.

Late in the day, technicians increased the number of traps to seven. Space agency officials were counting the dead midges hourly and waiting for the total to stop rising, an indication the transfer preparations could resume, Diller said.

Astronomers say the Hubble should improve their view of the universe 10 times over the best ground-based telescopes, possibly even revealing the existence of large planets circling neighboring stars.

The instrument's heart and soul is a highly reflective 94-inch mirror, and the space agency has taken great pains to keep it and other spacecraft components free of contamination.

Workers who ready the Hubble for launch in Florida wear surgical garb and are not permitted to smoke in the facility or use hairspray.

To control contaminants, the space agency even suspended routine insect spraying near the facility and postponed the burning of stubble on agricultural areas near the launch site.