NASA And SpaceX Explore the Idea of Shifting Hubble to a More Stable Orbit
NASA and SpaceX authorized an unfunded Space Act Agreement Thursday, Sept. 22nd, to study the feasibility of a SpaceX and Polaris Program concept to boost the agency’s Hubble Space Telescope into a greater orbit with the Dragon spacecraft at no cost to the government.
There are no plans for NASA to carry out or fund a servicing mission or compete this opportunity; the study is designed to assist the agency in understanding the commercial possibilities.
SpaceX– in partnership with the Polaris Program– proposed this study to better understand the technical challenges associated with servicing missions. This study is non-exclusive, and other companies might offer similar studies with different rockets or spacecraft as their design.
Groups expect the study to take up to 6 months, collecting technical information from both Hubble and the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft. This information will assist in determining whether it should be possible to safely rendezvous, dock, and also move the telescope into a more stable orbit.
” This research is an exciting instance of the innovative approaches NASA is exploring through private-public partnerships,” stated Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “As our fleet expands, we want to explore a wide range of opportunities to support the most durable, superlative science missions possible.”
While Hubble and also Dragon will serve as test models for this research, portions of the mission theory may apply to other spacecraft, particularly those in near-Earth orbit like Hubble.
Hubble has been operating since 1990, roughly 335 miles over Earth, in an orbit that is slowly decaying over time. Rebooting Hubble into a greater, more stable orbit could include multiple yrs of operations to its life.
At the end of its lifetime, NASA intentions to safely de-orbit or dispose of Hubble.
” SpaceX and also the Polaris Program want to expand the boundaries of current technology and explore how commercial partnerships could creatively solve challenging complex problems,” said Jessica Jensen, vice president of Customer Operations & Integration at SpaceX. “Missions such as servicing Hubble would assist us in expanding space capabilities to ultimately help all of us achieve our objectives of becoming a space-faring, multiplanetary civilization.”
Read the original article on NASA.
