Comments on: Hubble servicing mission to be decided soon

By: Captain Curt

Captain Curt — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 05:15:53 +0000

Maybe you guys haven’t had a good laugh yet, this may be your chance. Please bear with me, I’m going to float a wild idea. As decommissioning looms, I’m thinking that the hubble could have a second mission. To the best of my understanding, we still have a long way to go developing a strategy to detect and stop asteroids that would be on a collision course with earth.

Maybe the hubble could play a role being a practical projectile to hurl at an incoming asteroid. Whether the hubble is 1) a dead weight corpse or 2) still functioning in some capacity. Maybe NASA could build a booster rocket that could attach to (and or collect) the hubble and then intercept the asteroid. If the hubble is dead, then its still available mass that doesn’t need to be lifted into orbit. If the hubble is still functioning, maybe it could also be used in targeting the asteroid. I think we desperately need ANY options when considering how to stop an inbound asteroid. So I’m suggesting at decommission time, if possible, the hubble should be parked in the highest orbit possible instead of being sent back to earth. NASA could build this booster rocket and keep it on earth just waiting in case its needed.

By: Quiet_Desperation

Quiet_Desperation — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 17:07:41 +0000

“Of course we immediately start making those new Hubbles it will be years before the first one will be ready for launch. ”

Not much we can do about that. Besides, because of the correcting lens in the Hubble, aren’t some Earth based observatories doing the real cutting edge stuff to fill the time gap? Adaptive optics and all that.

Here’s a thought: could a constellation of Hubbles be used as an arry to observe a single target? Maybe at least for wide field?

By: Irishman

Irishman — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 16:02:18 +0000

Maurizio Morabito,

2 are not working, two are in operational mode, and two are on standby. That means if one or both currently operational ones go down, the remaining (off) ones will be turned on.

The problem is that if they fail, Hubble becomes practically useless, and also probably impossible to dock with. And there’s that nagging problem of no way to perform a controlled deorbit.

That’s why the mission is somewhat urgent. You hate to be on your last string because there’s no margin.

By: Harold

Harold — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 15:04:57 +0000

The problem of letting Hubble come back down on its own has been, I believe, the main mirror – that big ol’ hunk of glass will be coming down like a giant Frisbee of Doom, and it probably won’t hit any populated areas, but… So having a fleet of Hubbles without a deorbiting plan wouldn’t be the best idea in the world. Would it be possible to build self-deorbiting capabilities into a hypothetical new-style Hubble?

By: Maurizio Morabito

Maurizio Morabito — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 08:25:23 +0000

Just wondering: if there are 6 gyros up there, and 2 are not working and 2 are failing, is there no use for the remaining 2, “shut off to preserve them”?

By: its about time» Blog Archive » links for 2006-10-25

its about time» Blog Archive » links for 2006-10-25 — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 08:01:13 +0000

[...] Bad Astronomy Blog Â» Hubble servicing mission to be decided soon I said I would do some more on Hubble. This is the thing I alluded to, about whether Hubble will be maintained. (tags: hubble astronomy images) [...]

By: Sticks

Sticks — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 05:42:24 +0000

One suspects Hubble will be sacrificed for the Moon mission as budget cuts continue o bite.

Sorry, but the betting is on no rescue mission and more cancelled science missions.