NASA Wants To Take Hubble Telescope Into Higher Orbit

Photo Credit: NASA

NASA is exploring the possibility of using a private spacecraft to take the Hubble Space Telescope to new heights, giving it new life. The space agency issued a Request for Information regarding SpaceX’s study that suggested how the space observatory could be placed into a higher orbit.

NASA’s request for information comes as it is trying to figure out ways to breathe new life into the space telescope and will remain open until January 24, 2023. Since the Hubble started operations three decades ago, its orbit 540 kilometers above Earth has been polluting.

Giving Hubble A New Life

Sending the telescope into a new orbit that is higher and more stable could add more years to the telescope’s lifetime delaying the point where NASA will decommission the iconic space observatory. The Hubble was last serviced in 2009 during the space shuttle mission.

Raising the telescope to a higher orbit using a Dragon spacecraft without funding from the government was first developed between SpaceX and Polaris Program. It was a private space mission program that uses SpaceX's Dragon and Starship spacecraft backed by billionaire Jared Isaacman.

The SpaceX study was carried out to provide a helping hand to NASA, which doesn’t plan on funding a new Hubble servicing mission or determining the possibility of such a mission. The SpaceX study also aimed to understand the technical hurdles to pulling off such a servicing mission.

Paving Way For New Studies

Since the study is non-exclusive, other space firms are free to propose their own Hubble servicing studies by using different spacecraft. These studies will collect data from Hubble and SpaceX’s Dragon vehicle to figure out the possibility of safely docking with the telescope before reboosting it into a higher orbit. These studies could take around 6 months to complete.

"This study is an exciting example of the innovative approaches NASA is exploring through private-public partnerships,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington."As our fleet grows, we want to explore a wide range of opportunities to support the most robust, superlative science missions possible."