The trouble with Hubble...

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ace5

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What is the situation of Hubble right now?<br />What is the direct linking of the DART satellite with the HST?
 
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ace5

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AFAIK, the DART satellite would test technologies for dumping the Hubble back to earth, to avoid it re-enter in an uncontrolled way.
 
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pathfinder_01

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Somehow I think the time and cost required to do so would be too much. It is better to use the Orbiter, upgrade hubble for a few more years of science and attach a small rocket to de orbit it.
 
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qso1

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I for one would hate to see Hubble have to go. But the reality of the manned program in general is that an HST servicing mission is becoming less likely as time goes on. The plus side is that we already got the 15 year design life out of Hubble and it may go on without servicing for years more...not to mention it revolutionize astronomy. I personally would support an HST servicing mission. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>
 
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nacnud

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I think if the next few flights go as planned then we will see a HSM but I think ace5 is right, it is currently not planned to add a deorbit stage on the next, HSM4.
 
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qso1

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I'm not entirely convinced they will even do a HSM but I'm not involved in the planning or execution of those plans so will see I guess. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>
 
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brandbll

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For some reason i always got the impression that the Kepler telescope was sort of an upgrade over the Hubble. Then i finally figured out it couldn't take pictures like hubble at all. If that's the case then people are absolutely nuts to let this spectacular machine go to waste like that.<br /><br />On a side note how much would it cost to produce a newer space telescope with some more modern modifications made to it? I guess it seems pretty reasonable that after you have made so many repairs to a piece of equipment like that you should probably build a new one at some point; not to mention you think they could make a better version of it at this point in time. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font size="3">You wanna talk some jive? I'll talk some jive. I'll talk some jive like you've never heard!</font></p> </div>
 
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scottb50

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The idea with Hubble was to easily exchange the experiments while using the same mirror. That being the case the stuff that gets out-dated can get replaced with more advanced equipment, greatly extending the life-tie of the facility.<br /><br />I don't have it in front of me but I remember reading the degredation to the mirror is less than what had been projected and with optical corrections as needed could work for a long time. Since I haven't heard of a lot of impact damage I would think the basic structure would hold up equally well, excluding insulating outer coverings and such, the basic structure aqppears to have held up pretty well and still produces massive data. The thing to remember is the areas that have had problems are the areas designed to be easily replaced as needed.<br /><br />I would be all for building another Hubble or Hubbles. Not that Kepler and other telescopes aren't needed for the science, it's just Hubble provides beautiful pictures that everyone can relate to. Sometimes the support the public provides is important also. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
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willpittenger

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<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>I would be all for building another Hubble or Hubbles.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />I would agree. However, I think Hubble 2.0 must have the following:<br /><br />* Correct mirror shape<br /><br />* Non-encrypted data link -- Hubble was force to encrypt everything because its guts were borrowed from the spy satellites of the time. This forces Hubble to use the TRDS units from the Pentagon. I leaarned that by reading <i>The Hubble Wars</i> by Eric Chaisson (one of the people who helped run the Hubble program, including prior to launch.<br /><br />* A lens cap that does not shake the entire telescopes<br /><br />* Simplier solar panels. Fewer things to go wrong. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Will Pittenger<hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Add this user box to your Wikipedia User Page to show your support for the SDC forums: <div style="margin-left:1em">{{User:Will Pittenger/User Boxes/Space.com Account}}</div> </div>
 
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qso1

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brandbll:<br />For some reason i always got the impression that the Kepler telescope was sort of an upgrade over the Hubble...<br /><br />Me:<br />One point to consider are the Hubble repair missions are more servicing than repair. Kind of like tuning up a car except in HSTs case, usually newer peices of equipment are installed. You also have basically answered your own question in the lower paragraph. There is only so much that can be done with 94 inch mirror as the one part of the system that cannot be changed without bringing the telescope back.<br /><br />Kepler will be an upgrade of sorts but at different wavelengths. Astronomers are usually more interested in what can be studied outside our visible light spectrum. As Scottb50 pointed out, the images are as much about generating public interest as they are for scientific study.<br /><br />It'll be awhile before an HSM actually gets to Hubble to do any work. If it is canceled, that would be a waste but only if Hubble craps out shortly after but even then, Hubble has already revolutionized astronomy so the only waste is, and not to degrade it, but future potential would be wasted. Its like ice cream on a cake with Hubble. We here at SDC don't want to see Hubbles service life ended prematurely or even at all if possible. But all good things eventually come to an end. At least say we had ice cream with the Hubble cake.<br /><br />The Hubble was also one of the most important deployment missions ever flown by shuttle.<br /><br />As for the public. I once saw an add with a picture of Hubble and a backyad telescope. It read "If you have this (Hubble), you don't need this (The small scope)". The add says it all. Hubble as an instrument overcome its initial problems by far. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>
 
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comga

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Kepler is NOT an improvement on Hubble. It is a single purpose PHOTOMETER, not an imager. It covers a wide field recording for five years one particular star field with part-per-million photometry. It is looking for transists by Earth sized planets. While Hubble has recorded occultations, it can't search blindly for them, and can't find planets as small as Earth. Likewise, Kepler can't and won't take great pictures, or spectra. Its images will be lower resolution than amature ground based images, and will be monochromatic (black and white) to boot.<br /><br />The James Webb Space Telescope, while much bigger than Hubble, will not be a direct upgrade. One of Hubble's strengths is visible and ultraviolet images. JWST is primarily for longer than two microns in the infrared.<br /><br />I believe that the HST servicing mission is scheduled for April 08. That is based on all the preceding missions going up on schedule. (Who here thinks NASA can launch one shuttle in July and another in August?) According to some online sources, $200M is being spent to stay prepared for this mission, including continuing work of the two instrument COS and WFC3.<br /><br />While Hubble is an absolute triumph, it is joined at the hip to the Shuttle. We won't be able to finish up the last 18 Shuttle missions for even $27B, (to use easily divisible numbers for 2003-2010) so each is an incredibly expensive proposition of around $1.5B. (Note that most of this money is being spent whether or not the Shuttle flies.)<br /><br />Hubble 2 has been proposed. If done without servicing, it has been claimed to be cheaper than a Shuttle flight, but that is easier said than done. There is even a second Primary mirror in storage, one polished by Kodak that would not suffer from spherical aberration. However, I don't think anyone expects that idea to go anywhere.
 
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qso1

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Good points, and thanks for the detailed info on the upcoming planned telescope missions. This further underscores what is actually the priority where scientists are concerned. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>
 
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brandbll

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I have a question about Hubble. Could we produce a telescope that is better adapted for taking a look at planets, and other planet like objects soley in our solar system? I know Hubble was able to do this to a certain extent(especially with the shoemaker-levy comet crash, that was spectacular), but wasn't it built for looking much farther? I just think if i had to choose between looking way out there or getting a better glimpse of what was closer to us i'd take the latter of the two. Then again, idealy i'd want both. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font size="3">You wanna talk some jive? I'll talk some jive. I'll talk some jive like you've never heard!</font></p> </div>
 
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SpaceKiwi

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The clock is definitely ticking down on a HSM. I think the gyros are the short pole on Hubble at the mo'. A critical failure is predicted on one of them by 2007 IIRC. It's certainly not leaving a lot of breathing room for mounting a servicing mission now.<br /><br />Of course, Hubble could defy statistical probability and continue to function safely well beyond 2007 but, the longer Shuttle remains grounded, the slimmer the chances of a HSM become. I'd think NASA will want a good data set of info from multiple post-Columbia missions before feeling confident the foam isn't going to be a potential LOV issue in flying to Hubble. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em><font size="2" color="#ff0000">Who is this superhero?  Henry, the mild-mannered janitor ... could be!</font></em></p><p><em><font size="2">-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</font></em></p><p><font size="5">Bring Back The Black!</font></p> </div>
 
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CalliArcale

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<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>AFAIK, the DART satellite would test technologies for dumping the Hubble back to earth, to avoid it re-enter in an uncontrolled way. <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />No. DART had nothing to do with Hubble; it was devised before the final Hubble servicing mission was cancelled. It was a more generic technology demonstrator. The idea was to develop a system that could rendezvous with a spacecraft entirely autonomously -- no intervention from the ground. (Russian Progress spacecraft are partially autonomous; they still require human assistance.) Alas, DART was mostly a failure. It was doing okay for a while, but a variety of things went wrong, the biggest was a substantial confusion of the distance between the spacecraft and its target, a dead military satellite. It ended up actually impacting the target when it believed it was safely backing away as part of the rendezvous abort procedure. So, the technology definitely needs work before it can be used on Hubble. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>
 
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bushuser

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If autonomous rendevous is so difficult, it seems teleoperation in real time by real humans is the way to go...at least for distances where the speed of light is not a factor. The Russians did it for years on MIR. I suppose autonomy is still a desirable goal for robot missions in deep space.
 
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qso1

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If left up to me and I still could not get both, I'd prefer an exoplanet detecting telescope in space (TPF) because we have some really fine instruments on the ground that can look at our own solar system planets. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>
 
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erioladastra

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"We here at SDC don't want to see Hubbles service life ended prematurely "<br /><br />I too don't want to see it end, however, a common misconception is that it would be early. It was designed and planed for a 15 year mission which it has now passed.
 
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comga

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In reply to:<br />The clock is definitely ticking down on a HSM. I think the gyros are the short pole on Hubble at the mo'. A critical failure is predicted on one of them by 2007<br /><br />N<br /><br />IIRC Hubble has three functioning gyros, but one has been turned off to act as a spare. Last I read, they were getting good science with two gyros. So even if one dies in '07, they can keep going.<br /><br />IMHO, the 15 year design life is irrelevant. It is still doing good science. Astronomers would use productively all the time on ten Hubbles, based on their applications for time on it. The Shuttle will be flying, so let's upgrade HST and try to get another decade out of it.
 
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qso1

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erioladastra:<br />I too don't want to see it end, however, a common misconception is that it would be early. It was designed and planed for a 15 year mission which it has now passed.<br /><br />Me:<br />I used the wrong term prematurely end. When I was referencing the ice cream on the cake thing, I meant to point out that Hubble is past its fifteen year service life.<br /><br />Thanks for setting it straight. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>
 
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erioladastra

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"IMHO, the 15 year design life is irrelevant. It is still doing good science. Astronomers would use productively all the time on ten Hubbles, based on their applications for time on it. The Shuttle will be flying, so let's upgrade HST and try to get another decade out of it. "<br /><br />Agree. The hard part is that at some point there will be diminishing returns. As long as there is one detector working that can sort of point, astronomers will be wanting to keep it alive. Budget pressures will of course be pushing to shut it down long before then. Then the choice will be to take it off life support and devote the money (HST has a large infrastructure) to another project. Hopefully, with or without a SM, this is a long way out.
 
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ace5

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In reply to: "(Russian Progress spacecraft are partially autonomous; they still require human assistance.) "<br /><br />Calli - I think that Progress Kurs - based systems only recquires human *overview* - for the case of anything going wrong, not assistance;<br />The Russians mastered the expertise in proceed unmanned dockings since the 60´s, when Kosmos 186 (Soyuz spacecraft no.6) and 188 (Soyuz no. 5) performed an automated docking outside the range of Soviet tracking stations.<br />And Kosmos 212 (Soyuz spacecraft number 8) and 213 (Soyuz spacecraft number 7) also docked in a totally un-assited way, in a docking operation again in out-of-range of any USSR radio stations. Before the signal was lost, the two vehicles were 335 meters apart; The controllers only knew that the vehicles hard-docked after they reappeared in radio contact range.<br />It was only when the complex was in radio visibility that, for example, the Soviets realized that Kosmos 186 and 188 achieved only a soft (probe) docking, not a hard (docking collar mated) docking.<br />The Kosmos 186/188 and 212/213 pairs used the older Igla rendeszvous system wich was less capable than Kurs.<br />Thanks for information about DART and Hubble!
 
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SpaceKiwi

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In light of the recent camara problems, what is the status of training for a possible HSM? As I understood the recent article on SDC, October is the earliest NASA will review the question of flying a Shuttle mission to Hubble. End of 2007 appears to be as long as most would like to delay a potential HSM, which leaves a 14 month window to gear up for this.<br /><br />Isn't that leaving it desperately short for the required EVA training to take place, or has a crew been unofficially assigned for the mission and they are already working on it in the big tank? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em><font size="2" color="#ff0000">Who is this superhero?  Henry, the mild-mannered janitor ... could be!</font></em></p><p><em><font size="2">-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</font></em></p><p><font size="5">Bring Back The Black!</font></p> </div>
 
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erioladastra

Guest
"In light of the recent camara problems, what is the status of training for a possible HSM? As I understood the recent article on SDC, October is the earliest NASA will review the question of flying a Shuttle mission to Hubble. End of 2007 appears to be as long as most would like to delay a potential HSM, which leaves a 14 month window to gear up for this. <br /><br />Isn't that leaving it desperately short for the required EVA training to take place, or has a crew been unofficially assigned for the mission and they are already working on it in the big tank? "<br /><br />NBL runs have been ongoing forf sometime. In fact, they are impacting ISS NBL training. While the official plan is to evaluate the next few flights and see if we are ok to perform a HSM, the reality is that we will be doing one unless serious problems show we can't. Plans are moving forward so it is not like too much time is being lost.
 
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