New camera for Hubble

A third spacewalk to repair the Hubble telescope went without a hitch yesterday, putting Nasa on schedule for completing all its planned tasks by the end of the 12-day shuttle mission, Steve Connor writes.

Two of the seven crew, Story Musgrave and Jeffrey Hoffman, spent more than six hours outside the shuttle Endeavour replacing the telescope's camera, which is about the size of a baby grand piano and can take ultraviolet images of deep space. The new camera has a special mirror to compensate for the main mirror of the telescope, which is faulty.