It has been 34 years since the Hubble Space Telescope was launched into the harsh and unforgiving environment of Earth orbit. It currently sits about 320 miles (515 kilometers) above our planet and is subject to solar radiation, freezing temperatures and micrometeoroid effects while delivering breathtaking and textbook-changing images. Universe to us.
Thirty-four years under that kind of stress takes its toll. Earlier this week (June 4), NASA announced: Hubble space telescopeThe remaining three gyroscopes, which helped scientists make sure the vehicle was facing the correct direction, failed. The observatory will now switch to single-gyroscope mode and keep the other gyroscope still working as a backup, so there’s a backup option to fall back on when the time comes. This plan is expected to keep Hubble alive until the mid-2030s. So what would happen next? Maybe the end of Hubble. Maybe not.
The problem is that Hubble’s orbit continues to descend very slowly. time It passes due to the atmospheric resistance of our planet. He’s also getting older in general, and with age comes some fatigue. This offers two paths for Hubble’s future. On the one hand, scientists could take advantage of the observatory’s steady descent and perform a controlled reentry in which most (but not all) of the spacecraft would burn up. earth atmosphere.
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Or scientists could take Hubble to a higher orbit where it could rest for a while; This allows time to decide whether a more in-depth service mission can be performed. kind of like the old days. This brings us to this point: billionaire with an ambitious plan.
In 2022, Jared Isaacman, who financed and commanded the project Inspiration4 completely civilian private space is launching and wants to do the same thing with it Polaris programannounced a proposal to rescue Hubble with a commercial mission in collaboration with SpaceX. It was related to NASA’s request for private companies to develop ideas on how to follow the Hubble acceleration route. The idea was indeed considered and discussed at length (including a multi-month feasibility study), but in short, NASA ultimately decided not to go for it.
“Our current position is that we will not pursue a re-increase after exploring existing commercial capabilities,” Mark Clampin, director of the agency’s Astrophysics Division and Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters, said at a June 4 conference. Public opinion on the status of the Hubble Telescope. “We greatly appreciate the in-depth analysis conducted by the agency. NASA set, SpaceX and the Polaris program and our other potential partners. “It certainly gave us a better idea of developing future commercial repower missions.”
There’s been a lot of wrangling lately between Isaacman, space experts, journalists, and even the public about specifically servicing Hubble. Soon NPR For example, the investigation, which obtained NASA’s internal emails through a Freedom of Information Act request, sparked controversy because it revealed NASA officials’ varying reactions to the idea. Isaacman himself suggested thisIf the plan doesn’t work, politics may be to blame, as noted in the NPR article. But during the last Hubble conference, we may have gained some of the clearest insights yet into the agency’s logic.
Fundamentally, given that Hubble is technically in pretty good shape, those risks aren’t necessarily worth taking right now. “We still believe it has very high reliability,” said Patrick Crouse, Hubble’s project manager at NASA. Goddard Space Flight Center It was said during the conference in Maryland. “We can run Hubble very successfully doing groundbreaking science for the rest of the 20s and into the 2030s.”
In terms of these risks, Clampin explained what the aforementioned feasibility study found, including the early loss of science and some technology challenges. It’s possible such a mission could contaminate the telescope’s mirror, Clampin said. Because Hubble is an ultraviolet optical telescope, even small amounts of volatile materials can reach the mirror and threaten the observatory’s sensitivity. “We believe we need to do some additional studies to determine whether the long-term science returns will outweigh the short-term science risks,” Clampin said. said.
It’s also worth noting that a commercial Hubble shuttle mission would involve a new rendezvous, docking and separation procedure, a spacecraft that has never visited the telescope before, and a new target, Clampin said. This introduces a lot of variables, and these considerations actually reflect what some of the emails obtained from NPR imply.
“The last time we went to Hubble was on the space shuttle and it was a long time ago,” Clampin said. “And of course Hubble is an old spacecraft now; a lot of the people who were on the first servicing missions have retired, and we’ve got a lot of work to do to get back up to speed on how to do this.”
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However, all this means that a commercial service mission is out of the question in the future. As both presenters emphasized, it’s probably best delay It’s such a risky mission until it’s absolutely necessary — and considering Hubble is pretty well in shape for the foreseeable future, it doesn’t look like it’s absolutely necessary.
“There is a greater than 70% chance that at least one gyroscope will be operational by 2035,” Crouse said. “We currently have four devices that are robust and highly productive, and reliability is expected to remain very high.
“So we’re not seeing Hubble on its last legs.”