December 27, 1999 - The crew's day began with a wake-up call from Mission Control, "The Cup of Life," sung by Ricky Martin. The music was the official song of France '98 World Cup Soccer and was played for Mission Specialist #2, Jean-Francois Clervoy of the European Space Agency at the request of his son.

After waving off the first landing opportunity of the day because of a concern with cross winds at the landing site, the crew was given a "go" to perform the deorbit burn which came at 5:48 p.m. EST and caused Discovery to fall out of its 380 statute mile high orbit to start the journey home to the Kennedy Space Center. With Commander Curt Brown at the controls, Discovery touched down at 7:01 p.m EST on Runway 33 at the three mile long Shuttle Landing Facility runway at KSC to complete a mission spanning almost 3.3 million miles. Pilot Scott Kelly, Flight Engineer Jean-Francois Clervoy and Mission Specialist Michael Foale joined Brown on the flight deck for entry and landing. Mission Specialists Steve Smith, John Grunsfeld and Claude Nicollier were seated down in the middeck. The end of the STS-103 mission marked the 20th consecutive landing at the Florida spaceport and the 13th night landing in the history of the Shuttle program.

December 26, 1999 - The seven astronauts were awakened at 7:50 a.m. to the song "We're So Good Together" by Reba McEntyre, played for Pilot Scott Kelly at the request of his wife. Following the successful deployment of the Hubble Space Telescope yesterday, the crew aboard Space Shuttle Discovery turned its attention to preparing for the return to Kennedy Space Center late tomorrow afternoon.

STS-103 Commander Curt Brown, along with Pilot Scott Kelly, first performed checks of the Flight Control System by activating one of the three Auxiliary Power Units aboard Discovery to allow them to test the various aerosurfaces that will be used to steer the Shuttle once it has re-entered the atmosphere. The crew then did a check of the Reaction Control System, the maneuvering jets that steer Discovery while the Shuttle is in space. Both the FCS and RCS checkouts were without issue, with all systems ready to support Discovery's return to Earth.

December 25, 1999 - Christmas Day onboard the Shuttle Discovery began with seasons greetings for Commander Curt Brown, as the crew awoke to Bing Crosby's "I'll Be Home for Christmas." "Merry Christmas to all of you down there," replied Brown. "And Hubble will be home for Christmas 'cause today we're going to set her free."

European Space Agency Astronaut Jean-Francois Clervoy used the shuttle's robot arm to gently release the telescope at 6:03 p.m. EST, then placed the arm into an upright salute as Commander Curt Brown fired Discovery's steering jets to begin separating from the telescope. The telescope's re-deployment took place at an altitude of 370 statute miles as the two spacecraft flew over the South Pacific's Coral Sea northeast of Australia, its aperture door opened to the heavens before the release. By 6:30 p.m. EST, controllers at the Space Telescope Operations Control Center in Maryland were reporting that the telescope was in normal operating mode. Controllers will perform two weeks of testing before resuming observations with the telescope.

December 24, 1999 - Mission Control awakened the crew at 8:50 a.m. today to the sounds of Steppenwolf's "Magic Carpet Ride" played for Smith and the children's song "Skinnamarink" by Kimbo for Grunsfeld.

Astronauts Steve Smith and John Grunsfeld installed a transmitter that sends scientific data from Hubble to the ground. The transmitter replaced one that failed in 1998. A second transmitter had successfully carried the load without any disruption to Hubble scientific operations. Since the transmitters are considered very reliable, they were not designed to be replaced in orbit and special tools were developed to make the job easier.

Smith and Grunsfeld also installed a solid state digital recorder, replacing an older mechanical reel-to-reel recorder version. The digital Solid State Recorder provides more than 10 times the storage capacity of the old unit. They also applied new insulation on two equipment bay doors. Both the transmitter and the recorder checked out normally on early tests by telescope controllers.

The third space walk brings the total time of STS-103 extravehicular activity to 24 hours, 33 minutes. This mission's three space walks bring the total amount of time spent servicing Hubble to 93 hours, 13 minutes. Space Shuttle Program space walks now total 317 hours, 3 minutes. And Steve Smith now is the astronaut with the second longest combined space walk time, with 35 hours, 33 minutes behind only Jerry Ross, with 44 hours, 11 minutes.

December 23, 1999 - This morning's wake-up music honored the two space-walking astronauts, Nicollier and Foale. Traditional Swiss music was played for Nicollier and the song "Only When I Sleep" by The Corrs was played for Foale.

The Hubble Space Telescope received a new advanced computer Thursday from space-walking Discovery astronauts Mike Foale and Claude Nicollier. Their 8-hour, 10-minute space walk, the third longest in history, also saw replacement of a 550-pound fine guidance sensor. "The brains of Hubble have been replaced," said Mission Specialist John Grunsfeld, who worked Thursday in Discovery's cabin with the space-walking crew members outside. About 30 minutes later Hubble began thinking with those new brains.

December 22, 1999 - The crew was awakened this morning to the song "Hucklebuck" performed by Beau Jocque and the Zydeco Hi-Rollers, a tune that the spacewalkers heard many times while training hundreds of hours for the mission in the 6.5-million gallon water tank at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Astronauts Steve Smith and John Grunsfeld installed six new gyroscopes and six Voltage/Temperature Improvement Kits in the telescope during their 8 hour, 15 minute spacewalk. The duration of the spacewalk was second only to the 8 hour, 29 minute space walk from Endeavour on STS-49 in May 1992.

December 21, 1999 -In recognition of today's activities, the seven astronauts aboard Discovery were awakened at 10:20 a.m. EST today to the song "Rendezvous" by Bruce Springsteen. At the time the crew woke this morning, Discovery trailed the telescope by about 330 statute miles.

At 7:34 pm EST, Discovery completed a sequence of ballet-like maneuvers with Hubble that resulted in a firm mechanical link between the two spacecraft. This operation proceeded without a hitch even though Hubble is in an unusual orientation because it was in safe hold. Instead of a normal approach where Discovery would come up from the "aft end" of Hubble, it approached from the aperture door "front end". A delicate operation by robot arm operator Jean-Francois Clervoy rotated the Hubble into a position for berthing with the Flight Support System (FSS) berthing ring.

At 9:00 pm EST, the robot arm successfully placed the Hubble on the FSS, and the three FSS latches locked on to Hubble. Hubble's source of electrical power was then switched over from its solar arrays to the orbiter, completing the most visible parts of the rendezvous/grapple/berthing operation.

December 20, 1999 - The seven Discovery astronauts were awakened at 10:50 a.m. EST Monday to the sounds of Bachman-Turner Overdrive's "Taking Care of Business." The wake-up call from Mission Control began the crew's first full day in orbit which will be a day of preparation. The crew will begin gearing up for the rendezvous and capture of the Hubble Space Telescope planned for Tuesday and the three maintenance spacewalks that will follow later in the week.

December 19, 1999 - In the final launch attempt available this year, Discovery and its seven astronauts blasted off tonight on the last human space flight of the 20th century to refurbish the Hubble Space Telescope. Under clear and starry skies at the Kennedy Space Center, Discovery lifted off on time at 7:50 p.m. Eastern time, lighting up the Central Florida coastline, to send Commander Curt Brown, Pilot Scott Kelly, and Mission Specialists Steve Smith, Jean-Francois Clervoy, John Grunsfeld, Mike Foale and Claude Nicollier on a two-day chase to catch up to and retrieve the 12 and a half ton telescope. Hubble was sailing over Eastern Africa at the time of launch.

Overview - The primary objective of STS-103 is the servicing of the Hubble Space Telescope. STS-103 has four scheduled Extravehicular Activity (EVA) days where four crew members will work in pairs on alternating days to renew and refurbish the telescope.

NASA officials decided to move up part of the servicing mission that had been scheduled for June 2000 after three of the telescope's six gyroscopes failed. Three gyroscopes must be working to meet the telescope's very precise pointing requirements, and the telescope's flight rules dictated that NASA consider a "call-up" mission before a fourth gyroscope failed. Four new gyros were installed during the first servicing mission (STS-61) in December of 1993 and all six gyros were working during the second servicing mission (STS-82) in February 1997. Since then, a gyro failed in 1997, another in 1998 and a third in 1999. The Hubble team believes they understand the cause of the failures, although they cannot be certain until the gyros are returned from space. Having fewer than three working gyroscopes would preclude science observations, although the telescope would remain safely in orbit until a servicing crew arrived.

In addition to replacing all six gyroscopes on the December flight, the crew will replace a guidance sensor, the spacecraft's computer and install a voltage/temperature kit for the spacecraft's batteries. A new transmitter, solid state recorder and thermal insulation blankets will also be installed.

Hubble's gyros spin at a constant rate of 19,200 rpm on gas bearings. This wheel is mounted in a sealed cylinder, which floats in a thick fluid. Electricity is carried to the motor by thin wires (approximately the size of a human hair). It is believed that oxygen in the pressurized air used during the assembly process caused the wires to corrode and break. The new gyros were assembled using nitrogen instead of oxygen. Each gyroscope is packaged in a Rate Sensor assembly. The Rate Sensors are packaged in pairs into an assembly called a Rate Sensor Unit (RSU's). It is the RSU's that the STS-103's astronauts will be changing. The RSU's each weigh 24.3 pounds and are 12.8 by 10.5 by 8.9 inches in size.

In addition to replacing all six gyroscopes on the December flight, the crew will replace a Fine Guidance Sensor (FGS) and the spacecraft's computer. The new computer will reduce the burden of flight software maintenance and significantly lower costs. The new computer is 20 times faster and has six times the memory of the current DF-224 computer used on Hubble. It weighs 70.5 pounds and is 18.8 by 18 by 13 inches in size. The FGS being installed is a refurbished unit that was returned from Servicing Mission 2. It weighs 478 pounds and is 5.5 by 4 by 2 feet in size.

A Voltage/temperature Improvement Kit (VIK) will be also be installed to protect spacecraft batteries from overcharging and overheating when the spacecraft goes into safe mode. The VIK modifies the charge cuttoff voltage to a lower level to prevent battery overcharging and associated overheating. The VIK weighs about 3 pounds.

The repair mission will also install a new S-Band Single Access Transmitter (SSAT). Hubble has two identical SSATs onboard and can operate with only one. The SSATs send data from Hubble thru NASA's Tracking Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS) to the ground. The new transmitter will replace one that failed in 1998. The SSAT weighs 8.5 pounds and is 14 by 8 by 2 and 3/4 inches.

A spare solid state recorder will also be installed to allow efficient handling of high-volume data. Prior to the second servicing mission, Hubble used three 1970's style reel-to-reel tape recorders. During the second servicing mission one of these mechanical recorders was replaced with a digital solid state recorder. During this mission a second mechanical recorder will be replaced by a second Solid State Recorder. The new recorder can hold approximately 10 times as much data as the old unit (12 gigabytes instead of 1.2 gigabytes). The recorder weighs 25 pounds and is 12 by 9 by 7 inches in size.

Finally, the EVA crew will replace the telescopes outer insulation that has degraded. The insulation is necessary to control the internal temperature on the Hubble. The New Outer Blanket Layer (NOBL) and Shell/Shield Replacement Fabric (SSRF) will help protect Hubble from the harsh environment of space. It protects the telescope from the severe and rapid temperature changes it experiences during each 90 minute orbit as it moves from sunlight to darkness.

STS-103 will also carry hundreds of thousands of student signatures as part of the Student Signatures in Space (S3) program. The unique project provides elementary schools (selected on a rotating basis) with special posters to be autographed by students, then scanned onto disks and carried aboard a NASA Space Shuttle mission.