When astronauts from the shuttle Atlantis open up the Hubble Space Telescope for its final extreme makeover, much of the work will be aimed at fixing what’s been ailing the world’s premier orbiting observatory. It’ll get fresh batteries and brand-new gyros, and if all goes well, Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys and the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph will be back in full working order for the first time in years.

But this is not just a fix-up mission. Two new instruments are due to be swapped into the mix, and those enhancements should give Hubble superpowers it never had before: for example, three-in-one vision that spans the spectrum from ultraviolet to infrared, and the ability to make out the cosmic cobwebs that stretch out between galaxies.

“We’re all looking forward to seeing how well the new installations and the instrument repairs go,” Ken Sembach, Hubble project scientist at the Baltimore-based Space Telescope Science Institute, told me this week. “We’re looking forward to an improved Hubble.”

The new instruments, known as the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3, or ”Wiff-see-three”) and the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (or COS), should open the way for new wonders and speed up the pace of discovery during Hubble’s final five years. They’re designed to complement the two instruments being repaired - or replace them in case they can’t be fixed.

Here’s a quick guide to Hubble’s future superpowers and how they’ll mesh with the space telescope’s pre-existing capabilities:

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