Hubble near retirement

[Plane]

http://www.nationaljournal.com/tech/pictures-hubble-space-telescope-hits-millionth-observation-milestone-20110705?mrefid=mostViewed#photo_9


Last I heard the plan was to use the last gas it has to tumble it into the atmosphere.

Frankly I would rather use its last thrust to push it up to a higher orbit, this would be cold storage for it and would make it availible for future repair and refueling once we have a new spacetruck.

It might even be made into a component of a future space station or intersteller probe.

Why throw it into the inceneerator when it has an empty shelf to sit on ?

[Xavier_Onassis]

Frankly I would rather use its last thrust to push it up to a higher orbit, this would be cold storage for it and would make it availible for future repair and refueling once we have a new spacetruck.

=======================================================
If this is possible to do safely, then it should be done.

No one wants to get hit by a plummeting space telescope.

I agree, if it can be left there, it should be left there. It is very expensive to launch stuff into orbit, and Hubble parts could be useful even it Hubble itself could not be restored to operation.

[Plane]

Barring collision it could be used for many decades , but it requires a very expensive maintence visit to refuel it now and then.

I don't understand the thinking that causes NASA to plan its destruction.

[Xavier_Onassis]

I assume they have their reasons. Something to do with national secrets, perhaps? Maybe they could use Hubble to see up Hugo Chavez's butt or something.

I agree that it would be better to just leave it up there.

[kimba1]

I had the impression theirs quite abit of junk in space so it may not be possible to safely leave it up there in higher orbit . is this wrong??

[Plane]

I had the impression theirs quite abit of junk in space so it may not be possible to safely leave it up there in higher orbit . is this wrong??

Hmmm...

Let me look.

[Plane]

I had the impression theirs quite abit of junk in space so it may not be possible to safely leave it up there in higher orbit . is this wrong??

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/04/shocking-space-debris-images.php



[img]http://www.treehugger.com/space-junk-damage-hubble.jpg[/img

This hole over 1 cm in diameter penetrates the Hubble high gain antenna dish (the unit continued working in spite of the damage). The windows on the Space Shuttle have been replaced 80 times due to impacts with objects of less than 1 mm. And costly systems to track and issue daily emails warning of potential impacts must be maintained


So what can be done? Guidelines do exist, published by the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC). The guidelines limit creation of debris in normal operations, and promote "disposal" either by deorbiting junk back towards earth, where it usually burns up in the atmosphere, or by putting space junk into "graveyard" orbits above the commercially important low-Earth and geostationary orbit zones. But more needs to be done. Some experts advocate for regulations. Live Science takes it a step farther, speculating on giant NERF balls, space lasers and cosmic collection vehicles among other imaginative ways to tackle the growing problem.

I don't think the Hubble beiong boosted higher than most useful orbits would make the problem any worse.


I don't know if it has enough fuel for that.

[Plane]

  Oh ho!

  With further reading I learn that the Hubble has been struck with space debris several times already.

When the space shuttle Atlantis docks with the Hubble Space Telescope for a final repair mission in October, astronauts will face a unusually high risk of a catastrophic collision with orbital debris, NASA officials say. The amount of space junk in the environment around the Hubble adds another element of danger to the already challenging mission, which aims to keep NASA’s premier telescope in service until at least 2013.

The environment where Hubble flies, about 350 miles (560 km) above the planet, is more littered with shards of exploded spacecraft and rockets than the area around the International Space Station, which orbits about 210 miles above Earth. The odds of catastrophic damage from an orbital debris strike are 1 in 185 for the Hubble crew, compared with 1 in 300 for missions to the space station, John Shannon, the shuttle program manager, told reporters. “It’s our biggest risk,” he said [Reuters].

[Plane]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope

Orbital decayHubble orbits the Earth in the extremely tenuous upper atmosphere, and over time its orbit decays due to drag. If it is not re-boosted by a shuttle or other means, it will re-enter the Earth's atmosphere sometime between 2019 and 2032, with the exact date depending on how active the Sun is and its impact on the upper atmosphere. The state of Hubble's gyros also affects the re-entry date, as a controllable telescope can be oriented to minimize atmospheric drag. Not all of the telescope would burn up on re-entry. Parts of the main mirror and its support structure would probably survive, leaving the potential for damage or even human fatalities (estimated at up to a 1 in 700 chance of human fatality for a completely uncontrolled re-entry).[140] With the success of STS-125, the natural re-entry date range has been extended further as the mission replaced its gyroscopes, even though Hubble was not re-boosted to a higher orbit.

NASA's original plan for safely de-orbiting Hubble was to retrieve it using a space shuttle. The Hubble telescope would then have most likely been displayed in the Smithsonian Institution. This is no longer considered practical because of the costs of a shuttle flight, the mandate to retire the space shuttles years prior, and the risk to a shuttle's crew. Instead NASA looked at adding an external propulsion module to allow controlled re-entry.[141] The final decision was not to attach a de-orbit module on STS-125, but to add a grapple fixture so a robotic mission could more easily attach such a module later.[142]

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v416/n6877/full/416112a.html

http://hubblesite.org/the_telescope/hubble_essentials/

http://hubblesite.org/the_telescope/hubble_essentials/image.php?image=diagram

Eventually, Hubble's time will end. As the years progress,  Hubble's components will slowly degrade to the point at which the telescope stops working.

When that happens, Hubble will continue to orbit Earth until its orbit decays, allowing it to spiral toward Earth. Though NASA originally hoped to bring Hubble back to Earth for museum display, the telescope's prolonged lifespan has placed it beyond the date for the retirement of the space shuttle program. Hubble was designed specifically to function with the space shuttle, so the replacement vehicle will likely not be able to return it to the ground. A robotic mission is expected to help de-orbit Hubble, guiding its remains through a plunge through the atmosphere and into the ocean.

I disagree, untill it suffers a lot more collision it will probly remain usable.
If it were boosted into a higher orbit the rate of collisions would decrease.
They need to dock a robot onto it just to de-orbit, seems as if a more complex robot could also refuel it and raise its orbit just outside the heavy part of the debris feild.

[kimba1]

could we send a unmaned rocket to refuel it enough to go to the desired orbit or is that too costly?

[Plane]

could we send a unmaned rocket to refuel it enough to go to the desired orbit or is that too costly?

That would be hard to answer without knowing precicely how refueling is done and what a robot could do.

If it were designed for this in the first place it might not be difficult, but it was designed to be serviced by astronaughts.

There is of course another option, it could be serviced by Cosmonaughts.