Hubble’s next upgrade - and beyond

The Hubble Space Telescope has precisely measured the age of the Universe, it has found evidence of dark energy, it has brought you images of distant galaxies – and now, with the state-of-the-art instruments to be delivered in 2008 by Servicing Mission 4, Hubble will reach an even higher level of scientific capability, with six working, complementary science instruments. These upgrades will keep Hubble functioning at the pinnacle of astronomy well into the next decade. This talk will detail the forthcoming (but not necessarily final) servicing mission and what lies ahead for space-based astronomy, in particular plans for Hubble’s successor, the James Webb Space Telescope.

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About Alberto Conti

Alberto Conti is an Italian astrophysicist in the Community Missions Office at the Hubble Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore. He is one of the creators of the GoogleSky concept. He received his PhD in astronomy from Ohio State University with a thesis on the physics of galaxy formation. He has been at STScI since 2003. In early 2006, he sent a proposal to Google to extend the Google Earth interface to space-based data. The GoogleSky project, co-led with Dr Carol Christian, was officially released to the public in August 2007. Conti and Christian continue to work on its development.

Alberto Conti’s home page
Wikipedia entry