When a private space traveler said he wanted to take a SpaceX capsule on a mission to improve the aging Hubble telescope, NASA studied the options. Internal emails show concern about the risk.
The Hubble Space Telescope in 2009, locked in a space shuttle's cargo bay, before the final repair work ever done.The Hubble Space Telescope in 2009, locked in a space shuttle's cargo bay, before the final repair work ever done.For over three decades, the Hubble Space Telescope has captured stunning images of distant galaxies and stars, allowing astronomers to probe the evolution of the universe and its most mysterious cosmic phenomena.
In a worst-case scenario, however, an accident could leave the multibillion-dollar telescope broken — or, even more tragically, tethered to the dead bodies of the astronauts sent to repair it.:"I am a bit concerned that the 'clock' is being run out on this game ... at this pace, there may not be a Hubble to save."In a February interview, he suggested that some NASA insiders wanted a monopoly on the prestigious experience of getting to handle Hubble.
But no one has gone on a spacewalk from a SpaceX capsule yet, and the company has only just developed its spacewalking suits, so NASA has"no history on which to base future predictions of success," says Feustel. It's been 15 years since the final space shuttle mission to upgrade and service Hubble. Since then, the 34-year-old telescope has had a remarkable run of good health. A gyroscope, part of its pointing system, sometimes acts up, but NASA says it can operate the telescope without it. And astronomers still clamor to use Hubble, with demand for this powerful telescope far outstripping the available observing time.
This mission would"essentially be funded by Jared Isaacman," a program manager in the astrophysics division named Barbara Grofic wrote to Sandra Connelly, the deputy associate administrator for NASA's science mission directorate, in December of 2022."This is a fantastic savings for NASA, but also a very challenging concept for NASA legal and procurement."Grofic wrote that results of a feasibility study would be presented to Connelly in a meeting the next day.
He says space shuttle astronauts used to stay at Hubble for a week and spend hours pulling out instruments and fiddling around with the telescope's guts, but the commercial space world currently doesn't have that kind of capability or expertise. "In my mind, that was a plausible thing that you could get the team that was doing this SpaceX activity to consider doing — with appropriate support from the Hubble folks, the folks that know Hubble," he says.new hardware could essentially be built into the same mechanism that docks with Hubble, and that"we're talking about potentially just plugging in a couple cables here" to hook it up to data and power.
In addition to Feustel, the review panel included John Grunsfeld, an astronaut and astronomer who has been called"the Hubble repairman" because of his spacewalks during three separate shuttle missions. Keith Kalinowski, a retired Hubble operations expert, and Dana Weigel, who is currently NASA's program manager for the international space station, also weighed in.
That means for an astronaut to step outside, the entire interior will have to be depressurized and exposed to the vacuum of space when the hatch opens. Hubble's older instruments are expected to have greater than"90% reliability" from now until 2030, and the newer instruments will have more than 95% reliability"well into the 2030s," according to a spokesperson with the institute.
Altman, recounting how a spacewalking crewmate struggled to loosen a bolt during a repair attempt, recalled his relief when the bolt finally broke free and he knew that"we're not the crew that killed the Hubble Space Telescope, the most incredible scientific instrument ever deployed by humans."In a 1997 servicing mission, astronaut Steven Smith does a spacewalk as the telescope sits in space shuttle Discovery's cargo bay.
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