Nasa, SpaceX study boosting Hubble to extend its lifespan

Nasa and SpaceX have agreed to study the feasibility of awarding Elon Musk’s company a contract to boost the Hubble Space Telescope to a higher orbit, with a goal of extending its lifespan, the US space agency said Thursday.

The renowned observatory has been operating since 1990 about 540km above Earth, in an orbit that slowly decays over time.

Hubble has no on-board propulsion to combat the small, but noticeable amount of atmospheric drag in this region of space, and its altitude has previously been restored during Space Shuttle missions.

The proposed new effort would involve a SpaceX Dragon capsule.

“A few months ago, SpaceX approached Nasa with the idea for a study whether a commercial crew could help reboost our Hubble spacecraft,” Nasa’s chief scientist Thomas Zuburchen said, adding the agency agreed to the study at no cost to itself.

He stressed there are no concrete plans at present to conduct or fund such a mission until the technical challenges are better understood. One of the main obstacles would be that the Dragon spacecraft, unlike the Space Shuttles, does not have a robotic arm and would need modifications for such a mission.

SpaceX proposed the idea in partnership with the Polaris Programme, a private human spaceflight venture led by payments billionaire Jared Isaacman, who last year chartered a SpaceX Crew Dragon to orbit the Earth with three other private astronauts.

“This would certainly fit within the parameters we established for the Polaris programme,” Isaacman said regarding whether reboosting Hubble could be the goal for a future Polaris mission.

Arguably among the most valuable instruments in scientific history, Hubble continues to make important discoveries, including this year detecting the farthest individual star ever seen, Earendel, whose light took 12.9 billion years to reach Earth.

It is currently forecast to remain operational throughout this decade, with a 50 per cent chance of de-orbiting in 2037, said Patrick Crouse, Hubble Space Telescope project manager.

SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES