SPACE.com Live: STS-125: The Final Shuttle Flight to Hubble

[Andrea_Thompson]

On a slightly off topic note, thanks to both of you for participating in this "event". Too often, the great minds here get very frustrated when we feel that no one is listening.
MW

Happy to oblige. Sometimes we get caught up writing the news, but we'll try to visit a little more often.

 

[TariqJMalik]

How does the Delta V profile for this mission differ from a "normal" ISS flight?

Newsartist, Atlantis' Delta V is such that it can send it to an altitude of some 300 miles and an orbital inclination of about 28.5 degrees, that's where Hubble lives. Unfortunately, the shuttle will not carry enough fuel to reach Hubble and still be able to reach the International Space Station, which orbits at an inclination of about 51.6 degrees.

 

[MeteorWayne]

Is NASA planning to announce on Friday if the OK will be given to move the launch up to May 11th?

 

[TariqJMalik]

Hi Tariq & Andrea,

Secondly, in your opinions, what d you think will be the death knell for Hubble? Gyros, solar arrays being degraded, instument failure or even orbital decay (despite Hubble orbiting at approx twice the altitude of the ISS)?

Lastly, what are your greatest wishes for Hubble to observe?

Best regards fom Andrew.

Andrew, I think Andrea answered your other questions, but the death knell for Hubble is up in the air.

Without the upcoming STS-125 mission, Hubble is one failure away (the data handling unit they revived last fall) from being space junk. With it, it has a good chance of going at least through 2014, but some of the repaired gear will be single string only. So that can fail. Even a wayward space rock or orbital trash could pose a real, and unexpected threat down the road.

 

[3488]

Thank you very much Andrea.

The Ultra, Ultra Deep Field will be amazing to say the least, seeing the Universe only 500 million years post Big Bang.

Those results will be a real test about what is thought to be understood about cosmology & also seeing such young galaxies & hopefully getting spectra too, will give a good handle on the nature of stars during those very early times.

One thing also I would like to see done is get another long exposure of a star like Vega / Alpha Lyrae, a star know to host a protoplanetry disk & see if any more embryonic worlds can be imaged (like the one around Fomalhaut). Also perhaps similar observations made of closer stars like Sirius, Procyon, Alpha Centauri, etc to see if any giant planets are detectable & perhaps get more information about the stars themselves.

Certainl solar system observations must continue, particulalrly the weather of the giant planets, volcanic activity on the Jupiter moon Io, further pre DAWN arrival observations of 4 Vesta & 1 Ceres, etc.

Andrew Brown.

 

[imjeffp]

Any thoughts on critics claiming a new space telescope could be built and launched for less money & risk than this repair mission?

 

[TariqJMalik]

Is NASA planning to announce on Friday if the OK will be given to move the launch up to May 11th?

MeteorWayne, NASA plans to hold its traditional Flight Readiness Review next Thursday (April 30) in order to set a firm launch target. That is when they would officially target May 11, or stay on May 12.

Preston Burch, NASA's Hubble program manager, says it all depends on whether the new instruments and gear being packed into Atlantis' payload bay is set by then. They loaded it up yesterday and are plugging in electrical stuff today.

 

[Andrea_Thompson]

Thank you very much Andrea.

The Ultra, Ultra Deep Field will be amazing to say the least, seeing the Universe only 500 million years post Big Bang.

Those results will be a real test about what is thought to be understood about cosmology & also seeing such young galaxies & hopefully getting spectra too, will give a good handle on the nature of stars during those very early times.

One thing also I would like to see done is get another long exposure of a star like Vega / Alpha Lyrae, a star know to host a protoplanetry disk & see if any more embryonic worlds can be imaged (like the one around Fomalhaut). Also perhaps similar observations made of closer stars like Sirius, Procyon, Alpha Centauri, etc to see if any giant planets are detectable & perhaps get more information about the stars themselves.

Certainl solar system observations must continue, particulalrly the weather of the giant planets, volcanic activity on the Jupiter moon Io, further pre DAWN arrival observations of 4 Vesta & 1 Ceres, etc.

Andrew Brown.

As I understand it, one of the goals for this next mission phase will be to keep looking at stars with protoplanetary discs to better understand how solar systems form.

They're also going to keep working at all the dark matter and dark energy questions (topics that our colleague Clara Moskowitz is much more knowledgeable about than I).

 

[TariqJMalik]

Any thoughts on critics claiming a new space telescope could be built and launched for less money & risk than this repair mission?

imjeffp, NASA's science mission chief Ed Weiler talked about this today. He said while the cost of the mission is one that can be criticized, even attempting to build a new space telescope would face the same scrutiny later on because cost overages would most assuredly follow then too.

As an aside, the Hubble servicing mission was slated to cost $900 million back in September. Because of delays, that is swelling toward $1.1 billion, according to NASA.

However, a future space telescope - like a daughter of Hubble - would cost much more, be larger and require a new launch vehicle (like Ares V) that does not yet exist.

 

[3488]

Thank you very much Tariq,

Of course, with the recent Iridium 33 with Kosmos 2251 impact, still fresh, it is understandable that is a concern with Hubble, not to mention a possible meteroid impact.

I wonder if the analysis of the solar arrays returned from the previous servicing / upgrade missions are concluded yet, regarding micrometeroid / space junk impacts? It will be very interesting to know what has been learnt from that.

I think the data handing unit failure was also a wake up call & hopefully STS 125 can help make that part of the systems more robust, though the dhu has lasted, without incident for far longer than expected. As you say, Hubble would have been space junk had it not been revived.

Andrew Brown.

 

[imjeffp]

However, a future space telescope - like a daughter of Hubble - would cost much more, be larger and require a new launch vehicle (like Ares V) that does not yet exist.

Or Jupiter.

Thanks.

 

[byland]

I'd also like to know how much longer Hubble will last. It seems like it's been up there forever!

It's certainly has been up there for awhile! The mission engineers say that if everything goes according to plan and they get the necessary repairs done, Hubble will last for at least another 5 years. Beyond that is a little hard to say and may depend on if the astronomy community still wants/needs to use it.

How about creating some thing like slooh.com for the Hubble by which users can sign up for accounts, choose missions, take images, etc. To have the ability to capture live imaging from the Hubble and vote on the next object missions, etc, would be very cool. I think a lot of interest from the public aspect could be generated as well as funding from memberships.

 

[Robert Roy Britt]

The live session is now done. Thanks to everyone for the great questions ... we'll do this again. -- RRB

 

[Hogan_314]

Looking to the future, how will Hubble be decommissioned? Will they capture it and return it to Earth when it is finally ready to be taken offline? Or, is it a situation where as long as it's functioning it will stay in service like the Mars rovers? I personally hope it's not doomed to be left floating in space unused and off the regular maintenance schedule.

Thanks for all the years of amazing images!

Byland, originally NASA hoped to return Hubble to Earth at the end of its mission, but with the shuttle fleet retiring that's not in the cards now. During the STS-125 mission, spacewalkers will attach a soft docking mechanism, a docking port for a future robotic spacecraft that - at the end of Hubble's mission - would latch on and then steer the schoolbus-sized space telescope into a controlled re-entry. A sort of space cremation, most likely over the Pacific Ocean.

No , please no. NO cremation.
Can someone with authority or well informed sources explain why the robotic mission can't simply significantly raise Hubbles orbit for a space museum for future generations. The ISSs orbit is routinely boosted. And IT'S BIG and fragile and it works. What could it possibly hurt? How hard can it be? Give space tourists something to sightsee. It also seems to be developing into a space pioneering icon. Maybe after some decades it could also be brought back to Earth and placed in the Smithsonian. Who knows.

We still have at least five years to figure out how to save Hubble from oblivion.

 

[rubicondsrv]

Can someone with authority or well informed sources explain why the robotic mission can't simply significantly raise Hubbles orbit for a space museum for future generations.

money.

the de orbit flight is estimated to cost at least 500 million.
at that cost there is a very high likleyhood that the de-orbit flight will be scrapped and hubble allowed to crash uncontrolled.

the cost of boosting the orbit would be even grater.

 

[TariqJMalik]

Hi rubicondsrv and Hogan_314, after our live chat Thursday, Hubble-bound astronaut John Grunsfeld brought up a fine point with reporters during some evening interviews. He said that there is still the option of boosting Hubble to a museum-or-graveyard orbit in addition to burning it up in a controlled re-entry. The jury, he said, is still out on what NASA will do in the future.

I just wanted to pass that little update on to you, since it came around 7 pm ET last night.

Thanks for everyone's questions again and cheers,
Tariq

 

[Anonymous]

Hi, Im glad that the new servicing mission to the Hubble is going to give it an extra 4+ years fo service, but what gets me is as hubble has been the pinnacle of the discoveries into the deepest depths of the universe, how can i it be left to burn up in the atmosphere or even just left in space to become another piece of junk, isnt there a way of retracting the solar arrays and maybe using an ultra slow descent reentry, if that is possible.

Or even a more drastic step putting it back in the shuttle as hence where is came from so to speak, surely this icon of humanities efforts to peer into the deepest recesses of space cant be left to be discarded, it has to be preserved the shuttles are going to be preserved in museums, im sure somehow the hubble could be saved even using an unmanned cargo vehicle used for the ISS maybe attaching a robotic arm the hubble could be placed inside the vessel and returned.

Thanks guys for listening.

 

[scottb50]

Personally, I'd much prefer that it be boosted into a safe parking orbit until such time as be we have the ability to bring it back to the Smithsonian (an idea first suggested years ago here on the SDC forums).

I re-second that Motion.

 

[MeteorWayne]

Hi, Im glad that the new servicing mission to the Hubble is going to give it an extra 4+ years fo service, but what gets me is as hubble has been the pinnacle of the discoveries into the deepest depths of the universe, how can i it be left to burn up in the atmosphere or even just left in space to become another piece of junk, isnt there a way of retracting the solar arrays and maybe using an ultra slow descent reentry, if that is possible.

Or even a more drastic step putting it back in the shuttle as hence where is came from so to speak, surely this icon of humanities efforts to peer into the deepest recesses of space cant be left to be discarded, it has to be preserved the shuttles are going to be preserved in museums, im sure somehow the hubble could be saved even using an unmanned cargo vehicle used for the ISS maybe attaching a robotic arm the hubble could be placed inside the vessel and returned.

Thanks guys for listening.

A great idea, but the Shuttle is being retired. All it's missions are taken up with servicing the ISS, and hopefully one more launching an already built satellite. There are just no missions left to use the Shuttle to save Hubble. Sorry, but that's just the financial reality of the times we live in.

 

[scottb50]

Hi, Im glad that the new servicing mission to the Hubble is going to give it an extra 4+ years fo service, but what gets me is as hubble has been the pinnacle of the discoveries into the deepest depths of the universe, how can i it be left to burn up in the atmosphere or even just left in space to become another piece of junk, isnt there a way of retracting the solar arrays and maybe using an ultra slow descent reentry, if that is possible.

Or even a more drastic step putting it back in the shuttle as hence where is came from so to speak, surely this icon of humanities efforts to peer into the deepest recesses of space cant be left to be discarded, it has to be preserved the shuttles are going to be preserved in museums, im sure somehow the hubble could be saved even using an unmanned cargo vehicle used for the ISS maybe attaching a robotic arm the hubble could be placed inside the vessel and returned.

Thanks guys for listening.

A great idea, but the Shuttle is being retired. All it's missions are taken up with servicing the ISS, and hopefully one more launching an already built satellite. There are just no missions left to use the Shuttle to save Hubble. Sorry, but that's just the financial reality of the times we live in.

It would be much simpler to take up space on a Falcon 9 with a propulsion unit that docks with Hubble and boosts it to a parking orbit, even better would be a retrieval mission, a new FAUX reality show.

 

[Testing]

little has been said here about the increase in resolution the instruments being installed will bring or what will be learned from the hardware coming back.

 

[MeteorWayne]

That has been covered in the main STS-125 thread in more detail. Glad to see you were able to log in