NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope is offline after a steering compon..
Before the Friday failure, Hubble still had four gyros functioning, NASA confirmed to The Verge.
But after this most recent one quit, the Hubble team has been trying to
bring one of the four back online, which had been off for a while,
according to a series of tweets from Rachel Osten, the deputy mission
head for Hubble at the Space Telescope Science Institute. However, this
other gyro is proving “problematic,” she says. If it can’t come back
online, that means Hubble is down to just two functioning gyros. It’s
not ideal.
The situation isn’t cause for despair just yet. Previously, Hubble
engineers figured out a way to operate the spacecraft with only two
gyros in an effort to extend Hubble’s lifetime. Additionally, NASA
claims that the Hubble team had expected this particular gyro to fail for about a year.
If the problematic gyro doesn’t come back online, the engineers have a
plan that will allow the Hubble to operate with as few as one gyro. She
argues there isn’t much difference between operating with two gyros and
with one gyro; both modes can still allow astronomers to observe the sky
and do valuable science work.
Unless a concrete plan is made to send a new spacecraft to Hubble to fix
it, the telescope will eventually become inoperable if all of its
gyroscopes fail. And even if they remain active, Hubble is coming down
eventually. The telescope orbits high up, around 350 miles up, but its
path decays over time thanks to small particles from the Earth’s upper
atmosphere that bombard the spacecraft and drag it down toward our
planet. Additionally, Hubble doesn’t have any onboard thrusters either,
so it can’t boost itself to a higher orbit. Most models show Hubble
coming back to Earth naturally in the 2030s, according to Space.com. It’s a tad concerning since its primary mirror could survive re-entry, though most of it will likely burn up harmlessly.
Better hurry up with those capsules, Hubble needs more help.
While I'd like to see Hubble boosted into a graveyard orbit, a sort of in-space museum, it's not going to stay functional forever. It's already lasted nearly thirty years, although it's gotten a few service missions. Maybe we can send an ACES vehicle up to give it a boost? That might make a good test mission for it - if it doesn't make it to HST, no harm done, and absolute worst-case it damages a satellite that's past due anyways. And best case, we preserve a historic artifact.
Hopefully JWST has no more delays, and gets up there with plenty of time left on HST. It would be kind of cool to see side-by-side comparisons of the two of them taking shots of the same thing at the same time.
Bring it back, Elon.
I might be wrong but JWST and HST have similar bot not completely overlapping capabilities. JWST is an inferred telescope seeing in a different band then hubble
The JWST thinking with AI configured for making conclusions from evidence would certainly be a landmark.
The JWST is infrared only while Hubble is optical
NASA actually has two spare Hubble units in storage that are enchanced, they might opt to launch one of those on a Falcon Heavy instead of another service mission if Hubble kicks the bucket.
Hubble's so old it makes me wonder what we can see with something modern. Easier said than don, I know, but it looks like Hubble's on borrowed time.
falcon heavy couldn't launch a hubble replacement. Based on what NASA has said its a keyhole satellite based on hubble which itself couldn't be launched on a falcon heavy. They don't offer a wide enough fairing because spacex won't put in the engineering required to do so as most commercial launches don't need it. hubble is a bit over 13 meters wide and spacex only has a 12 meter fairing.
any replacement would be launched on an Ariene 5 rocket or delta heavy which do have the fairing capabilities.
Fly up a replacement Hubble with a BFR and bring the old one back down for a museum.
https://cdn.teslarati.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/cargo-BFR-and-fairing-SpaceX.jpg
Just hypothetically, would the hubble fit in a regular space shuttle?
yes. Not hypothetically either.
Oops. Pardon my ignorance.
The space shuttle took it up to begin with; the original plan was to bring it down using another space shuttle and put it on display.
First shitty joke that came to mind
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/210867/e533204e-9425-4723-995c-261cab855c6d/hubble loses a gyro.png
I wish we could send the HST up to L2 and preserve it as a permanent artifact. Humanity should remember when we first truly opened our eyes and began looking at what's out there.
But that'd be very expensive for the sake of sentimental nerds.
I’m gonna sound really dumb now but I had no idea the Hubble was in space. I thought it was just a really big observatory on like a big hill or something.
But I would assume it was sent up in a "folded" state and unfolded in orbit. No idea if it's possible to "refold" it.
Although, if they did plan on bringing it back down then I would assume it can.
Its okay, take pride in the fact you made the effort to be informed.
Something that's becoming increasingly less common lately.
Good fucking luck
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