Hubble lives on!
NASA has extended the contract with the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland to operate the Hubble Space Telescope for another five years, through 2021.
Launched in 1990 and repaired for the first time in 1993, Hubble appears likely to operate for more than three decades, a stunning record for any spacecraft.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
NASA has extended the contract with the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland to operate the Hubble Space Telescope for another five years, through 2021.
Launched in 1990 and repaired for the first time in 1993, Hubble appears likely to operate for more than three decades, a stunning record for any spacecraft.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
The Hubble is a marvelous and stunning piece of equipment. It would be great to see NASA contract out one or more private repair and refurbishment missions to Hubble in 2021 along the lines of COTS. It would spur private space to develop EVA and a host of other capabilities. I realize that a capsule such as Dragon isn’t nearly as capable as the shuttle with regards to grappling Hubble, but I believe the significant repairs were done to Skylab by an Apollo capsule before the station was occupied. Hubble would offer a similar challenge.
Kudos to the many people who worked on Hubble over the years and its servicing missions.
Maybe they should design 100 year spacecrafts?
LocalFluff,
You have an excellent point. Up to now, we really have not had much ability to perform maintenance and repair on satellites or to refuel them with stationkeeping and attitude control propellants. Added to that the rapidity at which technology on satellites becomes obsolete and no one has really had much incentive to make long-lived satellites.
As we have learned to maintain and update the Hubble Space Telescope, we have increased the incentive to make the basic telescopic optics last as long as Earth-based observatories, and as with Earth-based observatories, the instruments attached can be updated, replaced, or repaired as necessary. Now that we are figuring out how to refuel satellites, it should not be long before the 100-year spacecraft would be very desirable.
mpthompson,
if one of the 50 foot (fully extended, but folds up into a shorter length) Canadarms (Shuttle Remote Manipulator System arms from the space shuttle) does not fit in the Dragon’s trunk, which seems to be only 24 feet long, perhaps one could be made that does fit. That should help with any future Hubble servicing missions.
This is what I mean, whenever I say that having 300 million Americans, or seven billion people worldwide, creating new ideas is better than having one committee thinking about them. People on this one site alone keep presenting good and interesting ideas for things to do in space or ways to improve our space exploration. It’s one of the reasons that I love reading everyone’s comments. This is the only website where I regularly read the comments. Sometimes they are even better than Robert’s original commentary. (Sorry, Robert, but you have some really smart, inspired, and thoughtful readers. Consider it as “too much success.”)