A newly released plot of the Hubble Space Telescope’s altitude shows just how quickly the observatory has descended in recent years.
The post on Bluesky by astronomer Jonathan McDowell is a stark reminder that Hubble is heading back to Earth, possibly sooner than previously thought, as its orbit decays.
Hubble was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990, carried in the payload bay of Space Shuttle Discovery. While it remains capable of pointing its instruments and has returned breathtaking imagery over more than three decades in orbit, it cannot raise its altitude.
NASA and SpaceX looked at using Dragon to service Hubble back in 2022. In 2024 NASA decided that was a bad idea because of potential damage to the observatory. Not sure how that was the better option instead of at least trying to save it, but that’s the conclusion they had at the time.
Yeah, I know. That sounds to me like they were trying to accomplish the boost without equipment designed for the task. I agree that a damage risk is better than of burning up, but they also thought they would have more time. They had forecast deorbit in the mid 2030s I think.
The only equipment designed for the task was the Shuttle. Hubble was designed and built for the Shuttle’s service bay. So we haven’t had equipment “designed” for this task since the Shuttle was decommissioned in 2011.
The whole point of the research in 2022 was to see about designing new equipment that would work with Dragon.
if it’s any consolation, in the al gore wins 2000 timeline they’re on Super Shuttle, the next generation of SSTs, and multiple Hubbles now orbit.
Along with a moon base and a stable climate.
Yeah, that’s basically what I said above. Designing a shuttle replacement is a huge task. I can’t imagine a dragon capsule will be easy to build out to perform the same functions. It’s unfortunate that all the attempts to build a shuttle replacement have failed.