SpaceX wants to research with NASA to look into using the space company's Dragon capsule to boost the Hubble Space Telescope's orbital height, which could increase its usable life, agency officials revealed on Thursday.
At a relatively brief news conference, NASA's science head Thomas Zurbuchen informed the media that SpaceX, whose Crew Dragon capsule transports humans and supplies to and from the International Space Station, will completely fund the six-month research.
As stated in NASA's official press release, "a few months earlier, SpaceX engaged NASA with the concept of researching how a commercial crew may assist propel our Hubble spacecraft into a higher orbit, thus extending its observational lifetime."
From its debut in 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope has been a workhorse cosmic observatory for astronomers worldwide, offering stunning star pictures and allowing advancements like the history of the universe and Pluto's moons.
Mission: Handing Hubble Telescope
"We like to help Hubble, and if that means not just increasing it but also delivering some service, and that can be done with a space exploration mission, all the better," Jessica Jensen, vice president of customer operations and integration at SpaceX, stated at the news conference.
"We're going to look into Dragon capabilities and how they would need to be adjusted to securely rendezvous and dock with Hubble," Jensen added. "Details of how that's performed physically, as well as how we do it safely from a trajectory standpoint - that's all to be worked out."
In a report from Reuters, the space agency states that the Hubble was repaired numerous times throughout the US shuttle program in the early 2000s. And since the program's termination in 2011, astronomers have investigated various options for maintaining the aged yet still operating the telescope. There are no plans in the works.
Their research will look at whether SpaceX's Dragon capsule will need to be changed to connect with and boost the Hubble space telescope orbit, as well as if personnel would be required for a hypothetical flight.
NASA and SpaceX are conducting a six-month feasibility study to assess whether a Dragon mission could safely boost the orbit of the Hubble Space Telescope and, perhaps, otherwise service.
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Hubble Telescope's Present Condition
Hubble stayed in superb condition and remained to provide spectacular and fascinating images of the universe. It recently photographed the Didymos asteroid system after NASA's DART mission purposely collided with one of its two member space rocks.
Furthermore, Hubble's orbit has shifted somewhat during the last 33 years because of air pull. The telescope is presently zooming around Earth at an altitude of about 335 miles (540 kilometers), which is about 38 miles (60 kilometers) lesser than its original trajectory.
Being at its present height, Hubble has a 50% chance of falling into Earth's atmosphere in 2037, according to Patrick Crouse, Hubble project manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, at today's briefing.
NASA and ESA collaborated on the Hubble Space Telescope project (European Space Agency). The telescope is overseen by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Hubble's analytical activities are managed by the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland. The Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy in Washington manages STScI for NASA.
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