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NASA Asks Private Companies How to Save the Hubble Telescope
NASA's call for Hubble rescue ideas
NASA is asking private companies for ideas on how to save the Hubble Space Telescope, one of the most famous scientific instruments ever built. On October 29, the space agency published what it calls a request for information. It is not a contract and no money has been promised. Instead, NASA wants to learn what companies could actually do.It is interested in three possibilities, pushing Hubble into a higher orbit so it can keep working for longer, servicing it to improve its abilities, or guiding it safely down through the atmosphere when its mission ends. Companies have until November 30 to respond.
NASA Explores Potential Commercial Servicing for Hubble Telescope - NASA Science
NASA Opens Commercial Bidding on Hubble Fate as Reentry Risk Exceeds Safety Standard
Planner: Sophia West
5 hours ago
Why Hubble is falling
The problem is that Hubble is slowly falling. Like every spacecraft in low orbit, it is dragged down by the thin outer layers of the atmosphere, and it has no engine of its own to climb back up. NASA's analysis suggests it will probably re-enter the atmosphere between 2033 and 2034, so any rescue mission would need to launch by 2032. Some outside experts think it could come down even sooner.That raises a safety question, too. Hubble weighs about 13 metric tons, and one 2022 study estimated that around a fifth of it could survive the fall and reach the ground. There is some good news for a rescue team. In 2009, during the last space shuttle visit, astronauts fitted Hubble with a special docking ring designed to let a future spacecraft grab hold of it.
Officials' views and the road ahead
NASA Administrator Isaacman said that Hubble still has important science ahead of it and that the agency should take any reasonable chance to keep it running. Science Chief Fox called the telescope a national icon and pointed out that private companies have become much better at capturing and repairing satellites in recent years.Hubble was launched in 1990 and has been changing how people see the universe for more than 35 years. In 2024, NASA turned down an earlier plan to raise Hubble's orbit. Whether a rescue happens this time will depend on what companies offer and how much it would cost.
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