The Hubble Space Telescope could get a much-needed boost after NASA and SpaceX signed an agreement to explore ways to lift spacecraft higher into orbit.
This 32-year-old orbiter has steadily fallen back to Earth since its last service mission in 2009. That’s why NASA and SpaceX have signed a Space Act Agreement — allowing The agency works with private entities — to study the viability of the rearward telescope, thereby extending its estimated lifespan from 15 to 20 years.
The idea is to send SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft to Hubble to raise it from its current 332-mile orbit to the 372-mile altitude it was originally stationed at when it launched in 1990. The study will see consider the economic feasibility of such a mission and find out if a service mission could be conducted to upgrade and repair Hubble.
A view of the Crew Dragon docking at the International Space Station.
NASA
Think of it like bringing your car in for an oil change – but instead of going to Jiffy Lube, you’re going to do a million dollar rocket launch followed by some incredibly precise repairs. in small gravity.
Like many other NASA projects, the deal is also open to other interested space travel companies like Blue Origin or Boeing to come up with their own plans. In a press conference attended by ArsTechnica, Patrick Crouse, director of the Hubble project, told reporters that NASA would have to add a propulsion system to the telescope if no attempt was made to get it working again. The system will be used to guide it back to Earth for a landing in the Pacific Ocean.
By spacecraft standards, Hubble is very old up to this point. When it was launched more than three decades ago, NASA gave it an estimated lifespan of just 15 years. The Space Shuttle service missions have extended its lifespan, allowing researchers to gather more data and beautiful pictures of our universe even today.
However, things are currently going badly for the agency’s dark horse telescope. Earth’s gravity grows exponentially the closer you get to the planet—meaning that as Hubble falls into orbit, it decreases and gets faster. According to Crouse, if nothing is done to propel it forward by the late 2020s, it will fall back to terra firma and its mission will be over. (And that’s the assumption much the tech hiccups it goes through these days don’t show up ahead of the entire mission.)
But despite the newer and flashier James Webb Space Telescope catching on in the headlines (and for good reason), Hubble is still exploring — and sometimes even working with its younger counterpart. For example, two telescopes collaborated to create a beautiful composite image of M42 Phantom Galaxywas made public in August.
The agency also has a financial incentive to keep Hubble afloat. NASA estimates it spent 16 billion dollars to keep the telescope running since its launch. By extending its lifespan a little longer, the agency could get more money from a piece of technology that might already belong to the museum.
Either way, the telescope is likely in its last legs. The tools and hardware that made it work were made in the 1980s. It wasn’t expected to last the past 15 years, let alone more than double that. Indeed, the world is lucky that the telescope has come this far — and who knows? Maybe SpaceX can continue to inspire another generation.
