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Hubble will change how it points, but NASA says 'great science' will continue
https://www.npr.org/2024/06/04/nx-s1-4992069/hubble-will-change-how-it-points-but-nasa-says-great-science-will-continue(3 min. audio at link)
Hubble will change how it points, but NASA says 'great science' will continue
JUNE 4, 20247:51 PM ET
HEARD ON ALL THINGS CONSIDERED
Nell Greenfieldboyce
The Hubble Space Telescope in orbit in 1999, just after a servicing mission by astronauts.
NASA
The Hubble Space Telescope is suffering the kinds of aches and pains that can come with being old, and NASA officials say they’re shifting into a new way of pointing the telescope in order to work around a piece of hardware that’s become intolerably glitchy.
Officials also announced that, for now, they’ve decided not to pursue a plan put forward by a wealthy private astronaut who wanted to go to Hubble in a SpaceX capsule, in a mission aimed at extending the telescope’s lifespan by boosting it up into a higher orbit and perhaps even adding new technology to enhance its operations.
“Even without that reboost, we still expect to continue producing science through the rest of this decade and into the next,” Mark Clampin, director of the astrophysics division in NASA’s science mission directorate, told reporters in a teleconference on Tuesday.
Because of atmospheric drag, the bus-sized telescope is slowly drifting down towards Earth. If nothing is eventually done to raise it up, it will likely plunge down into the atmosphere and mostly burn up in the mid-2030’s.
[...]
JUNE 4, 20247:51 PM ET
HEARD ON ALL THINGS CONSIDERED
Nell Greenfieldboyce
The Hubble Space Telescope in orbit in 1999, just after a servicing mission by astronauts.
NASA
The Hubble Space Telescope is suffering the kinds of aches and pains that can come with being old, and NASA officials say they’re shifting into a new way of pointing the telescope in order to work around a piece of hardware that’s become intolerably glitchy.
Officials also announced that, for now, they’ve decided not to pursue a plan put forward by a wealthy private astronaut who wanted to go to Hubble in a SpaceX capsule, in a mission aimed at extending the telescope’s lifespan by boosting it up into a higher orbit and perhaps even adding new technology to enhance its operations.
“Even without that reboost, we still expect to continue producing science through the rest of this decade and into the next,” Mark Clampin, director of the astrophysics division in NASA’s science mission directorate, told reporters in a teleconference on Tuesday.
Because of atmospheric drag, the bus-sized telescope is slowly drifting down towards Earth. If nothing is eventually done to raise it up, it will likely plunge down into the atmosphere and mostly burn up in the mid-2030’s.
[...]