by NASA’s iconic Hubble observatory has many years left, and ideas are in the works to keep it going for even longer – but those proposals could be up for battle.
The Hubble Space Telescope, launched in 1990, has been serviced five times by astronauts and is still in good health. But the telescope is aging and slowly falling towards Earth through natural pull from the atmosphere, so billionaire entrepreneur and private astronaut Jared Isaacman helped spearhead a proposal to send a maintenance mission to the telescope for the first time once since 2009.
Isaacman – the commander of the private Inspiration4 mission in 2021, which he also supported – is a funder and an astronaut on the Polaris Program. Polaris is a three-mission private astronaut suite flying SpaceX hardware that plans to launch the first commercial spacewalk as early as this year, with Polaris Dawn.
Hubble’s Polaris Program proposal was first published in 2022, and NASA asked other companies to submit ideas as well in a request for information (ROI) that closed in early 2023. There have been no official updates regarding the ROI yet, but has recently resurfaced in the news with a report from National Public Radio. The broadcaster obtained internal NASA emails through a Freedom of Information Act request, which revealed a range of reactions including concern from some about the risk to Hubble.
Related: NASA is seeking ideas to boost the Hubble Space Telescope into higher orbits with private spacecraft
Hubble’s final servicing mission in 2009 was a difficult decision for NASA. The agency, working after the 2003 space shuttle Columbia disaster that killed seven astronauts, initially canceled the planned maintenance mission. Their concern was that the space shuttle Atlantis could not reach the International Space Station for assistance, if necessary, because of Hubble’s orbit, far away from the orbital complex.
However, after the scientific community expressed concern, NASA returned the mission with a backup: another space shuttle, Endeavour, was placed on the launch pad ready to assist Atlantis if necessary. The backup was not needed for the carefully executed maintenance mission, however; he achieved his major service goals for Hubble, and the astronauts returned home without incident.
Hubble continues to observe, after many years of pioneering work in areas from the expansion of the universe to the investigation of changes in planetary weather.
Hubble can’t go on like this forever, though: instruments and systems are aging, the telescope experiences “safe modes” periodically (most recently for a week in April), and the pull of Earth’s atmosphere is slowly withdraw from their orbit. approximately 320 miles (515 kilometers). (For comparison, the ISS is about 250 miles, or 400 km.)
Additionally, the space shuttle and its ample payload bay for repairs are no longer available; That program retired in 2011, requiring new engineering solutions if anyone wanted to service Hubble again. Such a mission would likely require years of planning, and since the proposals have not been updated since 2023, the status of any potential new servicing efforts is unclear.
Hubble’s instruments and key subsystems (such as solar arrays and batteries) will “continue to operate through the second half of the 2020s and possibly into the 2030s,” assuming no unforeseen events, NASA officials said. Isaacman and the Polaris Program, however, hope to keep Hubble going for much longer—perhaps another two decades—through a maintenance mission.
Related: A private plan to rescue the Hubble Telescope may also target space junk
NPR’s lengthy report highlighted a number of different positions from interviewees and emails, from praise for Polaris’ innovation and quality of technical work, to concerns about a few things. Among those concerns that Polaris has not made a spacewalk yet, that the SpaceX EVA [extravehicular activity] suits have not yet been tested in space, it is difficult for NASA astronauts even to reach Hubble and any spaceway near the telescope is at risk of damage.
(Isaacman was unavailable for an NPR interview due to his Polaris training schedule, SpaceX did not respond to NPR’s requests, and NASA sent brief statements to the broadcaster publicly promising detailed follow-ups in the near future. The European Space Agency, also funder of the telescope, not interviewed.)
The joint NASA-Polaris Hubble feasibility study has not yet been released, but “hopefully that will come out,” Isaacman wrote on X (formerly Twitter) saying that a six-month technical analysis was conducted and a formal proposal was made.
Isaacman added that he fears the public discourse since then has, in his opinion, been wrongly falling into camps including “new space vs. old space, or people who love SpaceX vs. Haters SpaceX, incompetent tourist vs real astronaut.”
Related: Photos: NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope servicing missions
“It really shouldn’t be related to the mission, because if there was a planned mission it would have resources across all the organizations that participated in the study to ensure success,” Isaacman emphasized.
“It’s not like anyone was going to wing it, especially after doing a joint study to generally determine how a successful mission could be accomplished,” said Isaacman, whose resume includes more more than 6,000 hours piloting various aircraft, including time dealing with incidents. or performing flight formations.
Isaacman paid tribute to the service missions managed by NASA in the past. Several rounds of spacewalks were required along with the replacement of major instruments and the use of the space shuttle’s Canadian robotic arm, known as the Canadarm. Planning for these missions would always take several years, including lots of spacewalk practice by agency astronauts.
Advances in electronics over the past 15 years, however, mean “you can pack a lot of capabilities into something the size of an iPhone these days,” Isaacman said.
Regarding the risk to Hubble when it is being serviced again, Isaacman said, apart from the fact that Hubble is falling back to Earth, “many of the telescopic systems have failed and most of the redundancy has been lost. That’s the reason it keeps going offline.”
In a recent NASA statement, agency officials pointed to one faulty gyroscope as the culprit behind the April 2024 safe mode event, as well as another in November 2023. But there are still two other gyroscopes that Hubble can use to orient itself in space.
Although three of Hubble’s six gyros are no longer operational, and the best efficiencies come from using at least three for pointing, the observatory “could continue to make scientific observations with one gyro if necessary,” the statement said. Regarding Hubble’s near-term health: “NASA expects Hubble to continue to make groundbreaking discoveries,” the statement emphasized.
RELATED STORIES:
— How SpaceX’s private Polaris Dawn astronauts will attempt the 1st ever ‘all-civilian’ spacewalk
— SpaceX, NASA look to launch Dragon to service Hubble Space Telescope
– NASA’s Hubble Telescope is back in action – but its exoplanet hunter TESS may now be in trouble
Isaacman said that Hubble could only be boosted by Polaris until it reached “a certain height,” at which point (according to Isaacman) it would fall uncontrolled back to Earth or – if a rescue attempt was required at that point that – would. to undertake a robotic mission, which could be at taxpayer expense depending on what NASA wants to do.
“Had a mission been flown, and I was willing to fund it, I believe it would develop capabilities that would benefit the future of commercial space and in the process give Hubble a new lease on life,” Isaacman added. .
“I admit that this is not my telescope to contact and a lot of time has passed since the study until now. Government priorities change, budgets get tighter. It doesn’t matter who is funding the mission, it requires resource contributions from many parties To ensure success, whatever happens from here, I’m glad we all invested the time, including NASA, to see if that would work.”
