QUESTION: How many people does it take to operate the telescope? ANSWER from Jesse Bregman and Juan Rivera on May 12: The answer to your question about how many people does it take to operate the telescope depends on how you define "operating the telescope". There is a telescope operator whose main job is to make sure the overall telescope is working. There is a tracker operator who finds the object we want to look at and then locks the automatic tracker onto a guide star. There are two computer operators. Also there is a mission manager who coordinates the flight. Also there are the scientists who operate the data collection side of the telescope. Typically this will include about 5 people who work with the sensitive instrumentation.