SS Columbia Approaches HST

The Hubble Space Telescope is visible against the black of space, primarily because its bright metallic disk-shaped base and the frame of its solar panels, as the Space Shuttle Columbia eases closer and closer in order to latch its 50-foot-long robotic arm onto a grapple fixture on the giant telescope. As Columbia flew 350 miles above the Pacific Ocean southwest of Mexico, with astronaut Nancy J. Currie, mission specialist, in control of the arm and astronaut Scott D. Altman, mission commander, at the controls of the shuttle, the seven-member crew went on to capture Hubble. The image is one of a series recorded with a digital still camera.