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.
I think it is reasonable to lift the orbit of hubble. For the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, NASA announced in 2025 that a private company will lift its orbit which should be done by mid 2026. (space.com Article) And it “only” costs 30 million $, which is really cheap compared to designing, building and launching science satellites.