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.
Couldn’t we just use a shuttle?
The shuttles have been retired since 2011. They were heavily used, and already old at that point. Plus they didn’t have a great safety record.
I just wish we had taken what was learned from the shuttle program to develop a proper replacement.