Servicing Mission 4 Cancelled

Colleagues and Friends of Hubble,

We heard on Friday, January 16, 2004, that NASA has decided to cancel the fifth servicing mission, SM4. News of this saddened everyone in the Institute and our community of users. We have had an outpouring of sympathy from friends around the world, including many in the general public. I want to thank all of you for your support during this difficult time and tell you that I appreciate your ideas to preserve the great science we plan for the future.

We are setting up several tiger teams that will include Institute and NASA members to look at the different options for Hubble's future. I will create a web link from our main page allowing you to submit your own ideas and follow our progress as we grapple with the challenges posed by the SM4 cancellation. Although I believe we have the best minds in the world right here to address these challenges, we will all profit by getting the widest suite of ideas from people in academia, industry, and the public at large.

Many of you may be interested in what happened at the meeting with O'Keefe on Friday. The link below contains a brief description of what transpired that I wrote the following day and circulated to some of our supporters. It is my view and necessarily only a subset of the actual speeches and answers to questions.

By reading this message, you express your interest in Hubble. On behalf of the entire staff at the Institute, I thank you for your interest in what we do.

Steven Beckwith
Director, Space Telescope Science Institute