NASA Astronaut Scott Altman and Mr. Mansoor Ahmed Ex-Associate Director of Astrophysics Projects Division at Goddard Space Flight Center NASA shared their experiences in keynote talks at Institute of Space Technology (IST), Islamabad.
The lectures were part of series of keynote talks in the 6th International Conference on Aerospace Science and Engineering commenced at IST.
NASA Astronaut Scott Altman shared his experiences of the challenges faced during the missions along with the mission objective, design and applications of Hubble Space Telescope (HST).
He further enlightened the audience, that the need for continuous servicing of HST is required due to the installation requirement of latest hardware and state of the art technology for getting best results possible in NASA.
Mr. Altman was a part of the astronaut team on 2 out of the 5 servicing missions of HST which involved dangerous space walks and delicate repairs. Mr. Altman is a veteran of four space flights who logged over 51 days in space and is currently serving as Senior Vice President for Civil Programs for the ASRC Federal Engineering, Aerospace and Mission Systems.
Altman, who performed aerial stunts while doubling as Tom Cruise’s pilot character in the 1985 movie “Top Gun” before becoming an astronaut, has logged more than 7,000 hours in over 40 types of aircraft.
Mr. Mansoor Ahmed is Ex Associate Director of Astrophysics Projects Division &Ex-Program Manager at Goddard Space Flight Center. Mr. Ahmed shared insights into the repairing of Hubble Space Telescope (HST).
He described servicing iterations, planning, engineering, coordination & challenges faced during the service missions launched by NASA.
Mr. Ahmed spent most of his career in servicing of HST in different roles and also as deputy Project Manager for the latest James Web Space Telescope.