GREENBELT, Md. -- Shuttle astronauts will take one final trip to the popular Hubble Space Telescope to try to add another four years of life to the orbiting observatory.
Speaking to employees at the Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin on Tuesday said the agency would send a shuttle crew to Hubble in 2008 to extend the telescope's life until 2013.
It reverses a politically unpopular decision to let the orbital telescope power down by 2009.
"This is a day I have been looking forward to for 18 months because I really wanted us to find a way ... to repair Hubble," Griffin said. "This is just a wonderful day."
NASA's previous administrator, Sean O'Keefe, had been reluctant to approve a Hubble mission because of safety concerns after the 2003 Columbia accident. But the success of recent launches, coupled with a plan to rescue a Hubble service crew, convinced the agency to switch course, Griffin said.
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The earliest a mission could launch would be in spring 2008. Astronauts will install new batteries and gyroscopes to power and aim the telescope until 2013 -- when NASA's next orbital telescope is slated to begin work.
The seven-member crew also will add new, more powerful observatory equipment, including a device that will help scientists understand the structure of the universe.
"Hubble is the telescope that keeps on giving. With the new technology that's added, not only will it have new life, but a new view of the universe," said Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., a staunch supporter of the Hubble mission.
The mission is expected to cost about $900 million, but Mikulski announced she would introduce legislation with Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, to reimburse NASA up to $1 billion in expenses. To date, Hubble has cost close to $4 billion, NASA officials said.
In deciding to go ahead with the repair mission, Griffin reversed a decision by his predecessor, Sean O'Keefe, who said the danger to astronauts was simply too great. O'Keefe made his decision after the Columbia disaster in 2003. Columbia was damaged by insulating foam flaking off the shuttle's giant external fuel tank and was destroyed on re-entry.
O'Keefe said future shuttle flights would only go to the International Space Station. That way, the crew of a damaged shuttle could use the station as a "safe haven" while they awaited rescue.
Since its deployment in 1990, Hubble has been visited by astronauts four times for maintenance work and to upgrade technology, with the last trip in 2002. The first mission to Hubble, in 1993, repaired problems in the telescope's primary mirror.
The Los Angeles Times contributed to this report.
