Comments on: Hubble servicing mission on NASA’s mind

By: Mungascr

Mungascr — Sun, 01 Oct 2006 08:56:39 +0000

Hey Lorne my thoughts are :

Why not do both!?

Build a new Hubble *and* service the existing one too!

Can’t ever have too many space telescopes as I bet the BA would agree ..

Better yet set upan assembly line ..

By: Troy

Troy — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 02:04:30 +0000

I seem to recall there were cost-benefit analysis about Hubble a good number of years ago. If you’ll recall it occured when NASA was considering a robotic repair mission which ultimately would have cost too much. It seems that launching with an expendable would save some money, the issue would be that a new instrument would take years worth of development. I’m guessing it would about break even and there’d be a time delay. New hardware would essentially reset the odometer back to zero. Emotions sometimes trump dollars which in this case is ok by me.

By: Gary Ansorge

Gary Ansorge — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 19:22:07 +0000

Lorne and gophur65″ I was under the impression from the original sales blurbs for the Hubble that it was just too big to be launched by any of our expendable launch vehicles. That would preclude doing anything with the Hubble without the shuttle.

Gary 7

By: icemith

icemith — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 15:22:29 +0000

To Kim, Um, … ’soon’ …, I don’t think so. Unless you consider years and years, and maybe another after that, like 2013, will we have that opportunity to see real improvements. Well that’s how I interpret it, given a reading of various items in the link provided by Phil. And the latest date I noticed was still in 2005, so if there have been any beneficial updates recently, it did not look too hopeful then.

I also noticed a problem concerning any service of the Hubble in the future as parts fail and the back-ups themselves fail, the Hubble ‘Swan’ will revert to an ‘Ugly Duck’. Apparently it can only be serviced by the Shuttle as it is configured, both physically via connections etc., and electrically, and that the systems have to match circuits and computer programs.

How long is the Shuttle itself going to be around? Not too long, I’m afraid.

But I am still hopeful.

Ivan.

By: Spaceman Spiff

Spaceman Spiff — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 14:12:03 +0000

oops. I don’t know where the “Your comment is awaiting moderation.” came from.

By: ToSeek

ToSeek — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 14:09:10 +0000

There was a Hubble Origins Probe proposed to send up the science instruments as part of a separate spacecraft. You can see a PowerPoint presentation about it at:

http://www.pha.jhu.edu/hop/pptdocuments/HOPHandouts_congress_050202.ppt

It would cost .8-1 billion dollars but would have the advantage of using newer technology and potentially adding more instruments than just the two replacements. On the other hand, a servicing mission extends Hubble’s lifespan significantly, letting those instruments continue to work for many years. Politically, a Hubble servicing mission is probably easier to defend than a new probe, since the former justifies the shuttle to the science community, while the latter leads to the question, “If that’s such a good idea, why didn’t we do it the last three times?”

By: Spaceman Spiff

Spaceman Spiff — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 14:08:39 +0000

# The Bad Astronomer Says:
September 24th, 2006 at 10:41 pm

Cosmic Origins Spectrograph, or COS. The link in my blog (â€two advanced and very cool camerasâ€) has a description.

COS – yes, that’s what I meant. Thanks.