Repaired Hubble Telescope Leaves Shuttle Nest : Space: After days of zero-gravity tinkering, hopes are high for sharply focused science in coming years. Clinton congratulates crew.

The Hubble repair crew sent the refurbished telescope back into space Friday to conduct “many, many more years of science,” and then took a presidential call of thanks.

President Clinton congratulated the seven Endeavour astronauts on “one of the most spectacular space missions in our history.”

“You made it look easy,” he said.

The last remaining goal of the record-breaking shuttle mission was reached early Friday when Swiss astronaut Claude Nicollier released the telescope from the end of the shuttle crane 369 miles over South Africa. Its new golden solar wings shimmered in the sunlight as Endeavour slowly backed away.

“That was a very special moment to see it on its way, ready, open for business,” flight director Milt Heflin said.

During the mission, the astronauts conducted a record five spacewalks. They installed 11 new Hubble parts, including guidance and power systems and mirrors designed to correct the telescope’s nearsightedness.

The crew encountered few obstacles, and all were surmounted. The last was a telescope data-relay problem that delayed Hubble’s release by three hours.

The final and most important outcome, however, will not be known for about two months. That’s how long it will take the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to focus and align Hubble’s new instruments and determine whether the telescope can clearly see the more remote objects in the universe.

NASA launched the $1.5-billion telescope in 1990 with a primary mirror that was ground too flat along the edge. The defect left Hubble myopic and unable to answer astronomers’ most pressing questions, such as the age and size of the universe.

It also left NASA scrambling to fix Hubble’s vision during what should have been a routine service call. Among other things, the astronauts also had to replace shaky solar panels and failed gyroscopes.

Hubble program scientist Edward Weiler said NASA did everything possible to avoid an optical problem this time, most notably conducting an unprecedented number of tests.

Nevertheless, he said, “I can’t guarantee success.”

There was no denying the astronauts’ success. As a reward, Mission Control gave them the rest of Friday off. The mission is scheduled to end with a landing at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Monday, 11 days after it began.

Payload commander F. Story Musgrave, one of Endeavour’s four spacewalkers, said it was “a very ambitious mission to restore Hubble . . . so it will be good for many, many more years of science.”

The next service call on Hubble is set for 1997, then 1999 and 2002. Its 15-year design lifetime is up in 2005.

“But it did take the kinds of stuff that we have, and that’s mostly attention to detail, identify surprises, turn over every stone and give it all the energy we’ve got,” Musgrave told the President.

Clinton replied: “You gave an immense boost to the space program in general and America’s continuing venture in space.”