NASA and SpaceX Are Studying a Hubble Telescope Boost, Adding 15 To 20 Years of Life (arstechnica.com) 51
NASA announced Thursday that it plans to study the possibility of using SpaceX's Crew Dragon vehicle to boost the aging Hubble Space Telescope into a higher orbit. Ars Technica reports: The federal agency has signed a "Space Act Agreement" with SpaceX to conduct a six-month study to determine the practicability of Dragon docking with the 32-year-old telescope and boosting it into a higher orbit. The study is not exclusive, meaning that other companies can propose similar concepts with alternative rockets and spacecraft. [...] Among the questions the new Hubble study will answer is the cost of such a mission and its technical feasibility. The principal goal is to boost Hubble's altitude from its current level of 535 km to 600 km, the same altitude it was at when first launched in 1990. Since the fifth and final servicing mission in 2009, Hubble has slowly been losing altitude, and this process is expected to accelerate as the telescope gets lower.
The telescope's project manager, Patrick Crouse, said during a teleconference with reporters that in absence of a re-boost mission, NASA might have to launch a propulsion module to the telescope by the end of the 2020s. This would ensure Hubble makes a controlled reentry into Earth's atmosphere and lands in the Pacific Ocean. A Dragon mission to boost Hubble's altitude could add 15 or even 20 years of orbital lifetime, Crouse said. The study will also look at potential servicing options, although nothing like the detailed instrument replacements and major upgrades performed during Hubble servicing missions with NASA's space shuttle. Rather, engineers from NASA and SpaceX will assess the feasibility of replacing the gyroscopes that control the pointing of the telescope. Only three of the spacecraft's six gyroscopes remain in working order.
The telescope's project manager, Patrick Crouse, said during a teleconference with reporters that in absence of a re-boost mission, NASA might have to launch a propulsion module to the telescope by the end of the 2020s. This would ensure Hubble makes a controlled reentry into Earth's atmosphere and lands in the Pacific Ocean. A Dragon mission to boost Hubble's altitude could add 15 or even 20 years of orbital lifetime, Crouse said. The study will also look at potential servicing options, although nothing like the detailed instrument replacements and major upgrades performed during Hubble servicing missions with NASA's space shuttle. Rather, engineers from NASA and SpaceX will assess the feasibility of replacing the gyroscopes that control the pointing of the telescope. Only three of the spacecraft's six gyroscopes remain in working order.
just when you think they aren't watching ... (Score:3, Funny)
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Starship can haul up a much better scope (Score:2)
It's 9m wide - Hubble is 4.2m.
Re:Starship can haul up a much better scope (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but unlike most things launched into space, very large telescopes are *inherently* astoundingly expensive.
Given the quite low costs of a Dragon flight, this probably makes sense. I've been wondering what has taken so long for people to start talking about it.
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Re replacement gyros, plus de-orbiting stuff? I guess they _might_ "simply" be able to attach an external module to take over all of these functions. Worst case, it'd need to attach to the existing power-supply, but I guess it might be easier (says me!)
Re:Starship can haul up a much better scope (Score:5, Interesting)
I would assume the same.
On the other hand, if we can reach Hubble for not too terribly much money, then we can reach it repeatedly when something needs repairs.
In other words, worst case is we spend some money and learn we can't repair satellites in orbit cheaper than just launching another one (which I don't believe), best case, we spend some money and learn we can stretch the lifespan of most any satellite as needed/desired.
IOW, I'm looking forward to the attempt, and hope Congress doesn't do a "we can't just let SpaceX do this, we have to give ULA a chance to screw things up totally for the much lower price of ten times what SpaceX is charging"...
Re:Starship can haul up a much better scope (Score:4, Informative)
The man-rated Dragon capsule (and the Boeing Starliner too) is a spam-in-a-can space-Uber only capable of delivering people to the ISS. It doesn't have the capability to support EVAs or to carry out Hubble repairs and it doesn't have enough fuel to reach the Hubble's orbit and then return to Earth safely, not without modifications.
It is possible to build something that could allow people to go EVA at the Hubble Space telescope but it would probably require two or three Falcon 9 launches, one to put a custom-built module with an EVA airlock and support equipment in orbit, a second launch to carry the crew and recover them afterwards and maybe a third launch to provide an in-orbit manoeuvering module for the Dragon and its docked EVA module and carry the parts for the repairs to the Hubble.
The much-maligned Space Shuttle had all this capability in one package but it is no longer available.
Re:Starship can haul up a much better scope (Score:4, Interesting)
https://www.newscientist.com/a... [newscientist.com]
https://www.theguardian.com/sc... [theguardian.com]
I guess your last paragraph is accurate.
Re: Starship can haul up a much better scope (Score:2)
Re: Starship can haul up a much better scope (Score:3)
The next tourist flight will include a spacewalk from the Dragon itself. The preliminary mission profile does indeed include investigating a crewed mission to Hubble, potentially doing some maintenance (replacing gyros most likely).
Re:Starship can haul up a much better scope (Score:4, Informative)
It's funding for a six month study of the possibilities, read the report when it's published at the end of the study.
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Something similar to but bigger than Hubble, on a fixed-price and fixed-deadline contract, using modern electronics, will fit easily in Starship, with no need for complex folding mechanisms and won't waste billions of taxpayers' money.
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I'd hope they'd design the next one for launching a series of telescopes on Starship. So if there's a problem with one component (say, a mirror flaw), it doesn't delay the whole programme much if at all; you just use the next mirror in the series and add one more mirror to the production order.
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These systems are complicated with a huge number of parts; lots of things can be bottlenecks. Creating multiples derisks missions and timelines.
The Soviet space programme ran on a shoestring budget compared to NASA, yet achieved a lot of great things, and a lot of that came down to creating multiples. For example, most (if not all? would need to double-check) of their Venus probes were launched in pairs. Now, being the Soviets they usually just didn't bother to mention the ones whose rockets blew up, or w
NASA already has the birds you describe. (Score:5, Informative)
"Similar to Hubble but newer and better" describes to a T the two unused spy satellites the National Reconnaissance Office donated to NASA in 2012; at least one of them is currently being developed and refitted as a space telescope.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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I'm protected electric eye
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The donated mirrors are figured differently. They basically have a significantly shorter focal length, giving them a wider aperture than the Hubble main mirror. IN effect, surprise surprise, they were designed for looking at things that were relatively close. When focused to infinity, they look at a significantly larger patch of sky.
Nothing wrong with wide-field astronomy, but it's not equivalent to the existing tool.
Re: NASA already has the birds you describe. (Score:3)
Assuming the mirrors (specifically their quality) are the valuable part, changing the focal length of a Cassegrain telescope (like the HST or the Keyholes) is simply a matter of moving the distance between them.
Of course, they have to remain in alignment, but that's a trivial job compared to the mirror construction.
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"Modern electronics" are an absolutely terrible idea in space.
Most of the modern electronics are far too susceptible to cosmic radiation, which makes them extremely unreliable, and the shielding required to 'fix' that would be prohibitively heavy (and expensive).
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If Starlink wanted to get astronomers on their side they could just add a few outward-facing cameras to every satellite and give the data away.
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The new Webb space telescope cost over $10 billion and took 15 years to build. It's very nice.
However, if we could extend the life of Hubble for much less time and $, it would be worth it. Telescopes only look at one place at a time. Space is BIG and we need lots of telescopes.
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Even for the typical moronic SpaceX fanboy you are exceptionally lame. Do you even know the earth isn't flat?
The next big proposed NASA space telescope is LUVIOR [wikipedia.org]. There are two options being studied, LUVIOR-A at a lifetime cost of $18 billion to $24 billion and LUVIOR-B at $12 billion to $18 billion. Whatever is decided it would launch in th 2030 time frame.
As for size LUVIOR-A woul
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So, yes, still government projects. But much more of a production line of them.
One of the infuriating aspects of the whole COSTAR [wikipedia.org] SNAFU was the persistent rumours that the Spooks opticians had had very mu
Re:Starship can haul up a much better scope (Score:5, Interesting)
China is building a Hubble-sized telescope at the moment, the Xuntian telescope. They plan to launch it next year in 2023 but no date has been confirmed.
The Xuntian will be in the same orbit as the Chinese space station, although not connected to it. This is being done so that it can be retrieved and serviced by the space station crew if necessary. It does mean it's in a noticeably lower orbit than the higher-flying Hubble.
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Xuntian's mirror is 20% smaller than Hubble's.
Re:Starship can haul up a much better scope (Score:4, Informative)
Its light grasp is about the same, it has an off-axis folded optical path rather than the Cassegranian optics of the Hubble which needs a hole in the centre of the mirror to pass the light back to the instruments.
The Xuntian is a different telescope to the Hubble, it's intended to be a wide-field survey telescope (F/14 rather than the narrower field of the Hubble at F/24). It benefits greatly from modern instrumentation with an 2.5 gigapixel imaging sensor compared to the Hubble's 15 megapixel sensor which was state-of-the-art back in the 1980s.
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Hmm ok, but F/14 vs F/24 ? What's the resulting field of view area?.. Is 2.5 gigapixels enough to match 15 megapixels of Hubble looking at a given location? Although, I'll assume the modern sensors would have better dynamic range, SNR, and stuff like that so that oughta be in favor of Xuntian.
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The Xuntian telescope is intended to work as a sky survey telescope, recording large swathes of the celestial sphere over its lifetime rather than focussing in on small parts of the sky as the Hubble did, to push deeper into the cosmos and further back in time.
There's a Youtuber who presents Chinese space news on a channel called Dongfang Hour who posted a general guide to the Xuntian a few months ago. He discusses comparable fields of view and the like between Hubble and the new telescope, including showin
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Why pay for a new one? If Starship works, it can bring Hubble back to earth for repairs and upgrades, and relaunch.
Meanwhile, it would be nice to plan a way to boost it with existing, working technology.
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I like exciting space missions as much as the next guy but surely, in a couple of years, Spacex's Starship will be able to take up a much bigger and better telescope ? It's 9m wide - Hubble is 4.2m.
Or just launch another Hubble-class telescope, and position it an orbit opposite Hubble. Then they can operate linked as an effectively larger telescope, or independently.
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Re: No (Score:2)
Better to fix something that is already working and in orbit than to build something new with a non-zero chance of blowing up during launch, surely?
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Do you want to keep using an old telescope, or do you want something more powerful? I am pretty sure there have been a lot of advances in optics and sensors over the last 30 years since Hubble was built.
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We already have a newer, more powerful telescope. That doesn't mean this one isn't still useful too. No point in just tossing it when it can still so useful work.
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It depends entirely on how expensive it is to keep it working compared to replacing it.
It seems that the "keep Hubble" crowd fail to consider how the economics of the situation have changed in the last 30+ years.
Don't they still have the extra primary mirror (Score:4, Interesting)
Sure, it's still a useful instrument, better than all earth-based telescopes in fact. A Dragon launch is a tiny fraction of the cost of such a telescope, and let's not talk about the scientific value of it. As I said, it's still the best we have for visual wavelengths.
And, actually its primary mirror is flawed, it could have been even better... which reminds me, don't they still have the extra primary mirror stored somewhere? It is the most expensive part of the telescope and the rest of the telescope (electronics, sensors etc) would really benefit an update anyway, so apart from bumping Hubble's orbit, why not make a cheap Hubble 2 with that extra mirror and some modern low-cost electronics (low cost modern is still magnitudes better than most state of the art 90s), given that SpaceX can get it up there cheaply as well.
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Actually, when Hubble was launched it was better because it wasn't affected by distortion caused by the atmosphere that causes images on earthbound telescopes to go blurry,
However, we've actually made stunning improvements on optical technology in the 30 years since its launch and adaptive optics coupled with sky scans mean earthbound telescopes can now take far better images than Hubble because they have larger mirrors that don't have to be launched into space while the mirror compensates for distortions c
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You seem to agree the HST is useful, just disagree on how I called it "better"? It might have been hasty of me, but I should correct or expand on some points you made too.
Actually, when Hubble was launched it was better because it wasn't affected by distortion caused by the atmosphere that causes images on earthbound telescopes to go blurry,
Well, not just that obviously. There are wavelengths completely absorbed by the atmosphere that the HST can see as you mention yourself (along with not being hampered by weather or day/night).
However, we've actually made stunning improvements on optical technology in the 30 years since its launch and adaptive optics coupled with sky scans mean earthbound telescopes can now take far better images than Hubble.
Not consistently though. While, for example the LBT with its modern adaptive optics was on the news as being able to get much sharper images than Hub
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How can Hubble "scan and lock position for days"? It is in a low earth orbit that crosses the equator; therefore, that, combined with the slowness at which the Earth orbits the Sun, means there's likely no spot that it can stare at. It would have to image a given location for a certain number of minutes, take a break, take another image, etc. and then stack all the images.
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There are two "Zones of Continuous Viewing" near the two celestial poles, where it can observe continuously for about 36 hours or so. It has to stop observing when passing through the South Atlantic Anomaly, and the orbits take it through there about every 36 hours.
"Space Act Agreement" (Score:2)
I'm guessing that's like a regular agreement, but in Space?
Add this into the proposal (Score:2)
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Hubble does not cary any fuel or thrusters, and by definition you would not want it to. Too much risk of contaminating the mirror and other optics.
It's probably pointless (Score:1)
Unless they can fix the gyroscopes just boosting the telescope gives poor ROI. It's interesting that the telescope was engineered to be serviced by humans and not really machines. Maybe they could attach gyroscopes externally to the Hubble to use after the others fail.
Regardless, while it would be nice to save Hubble, it's unlikely to be done just by only shoving it to a higher orbit.