Hubble Doomed

The Washington Post reports that a panel of experts concluded that NASA's plan to service the Hubble Space Telescope with a robot working from an unmanned spacecraft was unrealistic, posing technical challenges so complex that they will be "unlikely" to be resolved in time to prevent Hubble from shutting down.

Last January NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe canceled a scheduled shuttle mission to service the Hubble because of the risks to astronauts. O'Keefe's announcement, essentially condemned the telescope to death sometime around 2008. NASA subsequently decided to mount a robotic mission by the end of 2007 to replace Hubble's batteries and gyroscopes, add two new instruments and possibly replace a third.

Today's report, prepared for NASA by the independent National Research Council, a division of the National Academies of Science concluded that "the likelihood of successful development of the [Hubble] robotic servicing mission within the baseline 39-month . . . schedule is remote:"

Instead, today's report said, the panel agreed with a private Aerospace Corporation analysis prepared for NASA that suggested "that a successful mission of this level of complexity would require a nominal development time of the order of 65 months" -- in 2010.

The panel's report also sharply disagreed with O'Keefe's assessment that the space shuttle could not fly to Hubble and still be in compliance with the risk reduction recommendations of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, the independent panel convened after the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated on reentry last year.

The report, "Assessment of Options for Extending the Life of the Hubble Space Telescope: Final Report" can be read here.

Yesterday the Associated Press reported that Aerospace Corp. estimated a robotic Hubble mission would cost $2 billion and would take at least five years to be ready for launch. By then there would be a less than 40 percent chance that Hubble still would be functioning.

According to the Associated Press, less than three years would be needed to launch a shuttle mission to Hubble, for no more money and with the usual medium risk of mission success.

NASA will review these reports for months and then announce a decision. Based on O'Keefe's January announcement I believe the Hubble is doomed.

As California Yankee posted last January What A Waste!