Origins: Hubble: Panoramas: National Buoyancy Lab (3)

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Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory - Poolside

This panorama was taken poolside, near the end of the pool where the Hubble Telescope simulator sits on the bottom. Astronauts are practicing the moves they will make during Servicing Mission 3b. You can see the control room and its monitors in the rooms above the pool to the right. The Hubble Telescope is too long to fit in the 40-foot depth of the pool, so it is broken into two parts. The lower end (where most of the work is done) is below the yellow float. The upper end is sticking out of the pool a little farther away. Divers constantly surround the astronauts, keeping them safe and lending a helping hand if needed. The far end of the pool contains the International Space Station models.

Before going into orbit, astronauts practice their jobs in a "weightless" environment here on earth. They do this in a 40-foot-deep pool at the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL). The NBL is located at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Tethered to their air supply by a long umbilical cord, divers add weights to the suited astronauts until they neither sink nor float. The astronauts then work on models of the Hubble, Shuttle, or International Space Station submerged in the tank.

Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory home page