NASA, SpaceX to Study Hubble Telescope Reboost Possibility
WASHINGTON (NASA PR) — NASA and SpaceX signed an unfunded Space Act Agreement Thursday, Sept. 22, to study the feasibility of a SpaceX and Polaris Program idea to boost the agency’s Hubble Space Telescope into a higher orbit with the Dragon spacecraft, at no cost to the government.
There are no plans for NASA to conduct or fund a servicing mission or compete this opportunity; the study is designed to help the agency understand the commercial possibilities.
SpaceX – in partnership with the Polaris Program – proposed this study to better understand the technical challenges associated with servicing missions. This study is non-exclusive, and other companies may propose similar studies with different rockets or spacecraft as their model.
Teams expect the study to take up to six months, collecting technical data from both Hubble and the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft. This data will help determine whether it would be possible to safely rendezvous, dock, and move the telescope into a more stable orbit.
“This study is an exciting example of the innovative approaches NASA is exploring through private-public partnerships,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “As our fleet grows, we want to explore a wide range of opportunities to support the most robust, superlative science missions possible.”
While Hubble and Dragon will serve as test models for this study, portions of the mission concept may be applicable to other spacecraft, particularly those in near-Earth orbit like Hubble.
Hubble has been operating since 1990, about 335 miles above Earth in an orbit that is slowly decaying over time. Reboosting Hubble into a higher, more stable orbit could add multiple years of operations to its life.
At the end of its lifetime, NASA plans to safely de-orbit or dispose of Hubble.
“SpaceX and the Polaris Program want to expand the boundaries of current technology and explore how commercial partnerships can creatively solve challenging, complex problems,” said Jessica Jensen, vice president of Customer Operations & Integration at SpaceX. “Missions such as servicing Hubble would help us expand space capabilities to ultimately help all of us achieve our goals of becoming a space-faring, multiplanetary civilization.”
The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy in Washington.
52 responses to “NASA, SpaceX to Study Hubble Telescope Reboost Possibility”
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Reboosting it would be nice, but I think it really needs servicing. It probably needs new solar panels, new gyroscopes, a new computer, not to mention new science instruments. As I understand it, there’s nothing currently flying that could do all that.
In theory, a Crew Dragon and a modified Cygnus could service the Hubble with new components.
The non-instrument hardware shouldn’t be hard to acquired, however integrating them with Hubble might be tricky.
Don’t think new science instruments need to be developed immediately, just use the backup/development instruments that is still in storage to replaced the current instruments.
Of course SpaceX have to come up with a working orbital EVA suit first.
They will likely have one soon. They are also going forward with a crew/cargo tower of Pad 40 so more crew missions will be easier to do.
they are no where close to that. they are close to a Gemini like suit with bare EVA capabilities
what is really needed on HST is a boost for an “add on” that at least stabilizes the vehicle. whats the Grumman…NEXT or the thing that goes up to geo sat birds…they need one of those on steroids…and then figure out a way to use an SNC Dream chaser to fix it
SNC is not going to be available for a while, not to mention their launch vehicle hasn’t flown yet.
As for EVA, if this is a NASA mission they should be able to use the old Shuttle EVA suits.
Nope, there is a shortage of the current EMU EVA suits. NASA will not risk them for non-ISS activities.
Pity, but since SpaceX is looking at this as a pioneer mission for servicing other spacecraft they probably have a suit design in mind, along with EVA strategies.
And then there is the Starship and a version designed to service or even retrieve satellites is a future option. It is an very impressive vehicle up close as I saw visiting Starbase yesterday.
starship wont launch humans this decade
It doesn’t have to launch humans, just serve as an orbital work platform for astronauts sent up in a Dragon. You need to think out of the box.
What platform would be needed for such a mission?
Skylab was repaired with a combination of standing EVA with Paul Weitz hanging out the Apollo CM side hatch to work, and follow-up work by leaving the station through the Gemini airlock hatch and doing tethered EVAs with no support vehicle or PLSS.
Hubble isn’t like Skylab or the ISS with astronauts working from access hatches. That is why when the Shuttle Orbiter was used to service it they captured the Hubble with the robotic arm and placed it in the cargo bay which served as the service platform. It stabilized it so the astronauts could do the servicing needed. It will be hard for the astronauts to work on it if they are not able to anchor themselves to some surface points.
Skylab was repaired by an astronaut literally hanging out the hatch of a capsule. No one needs to climb out of Hubble in order to service it without a platform.
Different vehicles and tasks are involved. I am sure NASA had good reasons to capture it with the robotic are and place it in the Shuttle’s cargo bay to work on it.
Launching humans on Starship directly from the ground into orbit seems to constitute thinking outside the box. Too many people – seemingly you included – appear to be sealed into the box that is bounded by “what NASA will allow.” As if NASA will get a determinative say.
only a fool would ride starship with no escape system
sorry for the late reply I have been doing flight ops at night those are 10-12 hour spans and well they take up time
aside from very much more functional EVA suits that SpaceX so far has not demonstrated.
The first box is going to be defining the scope of work. Reboost and dealing with stability issues….probably not that difficult. there are several uncrewed platforms that can do the job fairly easily with not much modification.
It gets a bit more tricky if you are going to do things like go internal and fix the computer system/modernize it.
that kind of defines the second box. you are going to then need 1) an airlock 2) the suits I mentioned and 3 some way to allow the astronauts platforms to work on.
thats not impossible but it argues for some sort of “module” that has all these things and that might take a bit of development. I’ve seen designs for this and they are pretty cheap. but you would need to think that box full
A guy/gal in a SpaceX EVA suit isnt going to do it
“starship wont launch humans this decade” Would that include a Starship HLS launch from the lunar surface?
I was careless with words but I meant from Earth to orbit and return. and I should have added “as long as it does not have an escape system” …and of course all this ccould change in a heartbeat because Musk seems to be grasping that the fully two stage reusable concept is doing to be difficult to do…so he might adapt
Musk is going to have himself an enormously capable first stage here at some point with starship. its going to take him a bit of time to perfect this but I am convinced he and his team can do that . it will in time evolve into F9 first stage reliability and based on that it will be fascinating to watch how he evolves the “system” to take advantage of that.
As for HLS. I think its doable but not on this money and well the entire lunar program is collapsing but that is Bill’s fault not Elon
Jared Isaacman disagrees with you.
and he is probably right because five days ago I changed my comment to add more precision to my words. 🙂
Polaris Dawn is planning to spacewalk in SpaceX EVA suits as their first mission. They are considering this Hubble mission for a later Polaris mission. If there is EVA work to be done, I’d expect they’d use SpaceX’s suits.
are you joking about the suits 🙂 there is a shortage of them and they are not very safe
One more NASA problem it seems SpaceX has to fix.?
NASA’s EMU suits are too few and too precious to be loaned out.
Yea, that seems to be true with everything that NASA does today in space. They never produce enough units so the few they have are hoarded because they are so rare.
Imagine NASA producing things on a production line with Starship or Falcon 9 where a single unit is expendable because so many are available.
More to the point, they’re too damned big to be useful on a Crew Dragon mission.
Hubble does not need stabilizing. NorGrum MEVs use electric thrusters. Hubble is roughly 2.5 times the mass of the GEO comsats MEVs have served to-date. I haven’t been able to find any data about an MEV’s total delta-V capability for a typical comsat so I don’t know how much of a boost one could provide to Hubble. But the boost would take a long time and could well be insufficient to get Hubble back to its deployment altitude. The MEVs are not capable of doing any kind of component replacement servicing.
The reach of astronauts wearing SpaceX EVA suits will be limited by tether length but tethers long enough to handle Hubble servicing from a Dragon docked to Hubble are certainly feasible.
It will be years before Dream Chaser is available in a crew-capable version. Crew Dragon exists and is operational now.
Hubble is down to three gyros and one of those is not in great shape.
the stabilizing vehicle would have to be plused up I get that. I know at one time ICM was looked at for hubble
Hubble gyros are not very large and have been replaced before. Just doing that again seems like the lowest lead-time plan.
IMO, SpaceX already got something better than the Gemini “EVA” suit. Better glove joint articulation & suit thermal management plus no helmet visor misting issues.
Just boosting the Hubble to a higher altitude could be done with unmodified cargo Dragon docking with the soft capture grapple fixture on the Hubble. Will required about 250 kg of propellants as calculated on the NSF forum for a Delta-V change of 6 m/s.
AFAIK reaction control with hydrazine or Xenon is incompatible with most optical space telescopes due to the issue of propellant residue contaminating the optics, hence they mostly use reaction wheels. There is no reaction control system on the Hubble that I am aware of,
Hubble uses electromagnetic torque rods to desaturate the momentum wheels. The s/c has a large aperture door that closes to seal off the main mirror & optical train during proximity opps.
curious to see what SpaceX comes up with it probably is better NOW than Gemini.
it would be interesting to see if they could come up with a hubble RB like cargo dragon but then they need to have something that stays perm attached for more reaction control wheels I think that they are down to three with 1 balky
“they need to have something that stays perm attached for more reaction wheels”
Expanding the scope of the mission concept from reboost and possible repair to design and manufacture of a whole new auxiliary positioning system add-on module that would of course have to have its design and manufacture contracted out to an established aerospace firm would be one possible way to go.
Your Boeing is showing.
thanks I try and think ahead it avoids disaster
a reboost is useless if all it is is a reboost where the spacecraft eventually become uncontrollable due to gyro failure. (and the collolary is true to, if it reenters the mission fails as well)
I did not mention “who” would build the add on module. I think Hubble is like all observatories in the US a national asset and is still a premier science device. there are some near term options for this. OSC’s module without the added pressurized volume could do it. I am hopeful this is NASA’s first effort at trying to think this through
“Better glove joint articulation & suit thermal management”
Really? I didn’t know much if anything has been released about either of these yet. Where can I find more detailed info?
“just boosting the Hubble to a higher altitude could be done with unmodified cargo Dragon”
At the bare minimum, Cargo Dragon would need to be modified with hardware compatible with Hubble’s soft capture ring. It predates the IDSS system used by Dragon. Even if it were the same dimensions as an IDSS SCS ring, it has no mechanical latch strikers, so there is nothing for the SCS mechanical latches to lock onto.
With Polaris being the group considering undertaking the mission, I’ll bet good money that even if the “repair” portion of the mission is nothing more than putting a piece of capton tape over a loose screw, the plan will be for Crew Dragon with an EVA. Isaacman doesn’t seem like the type to foot the bill and then sit on the sidelines,. He will want to have a hands-on a part in the adventure.
Shouldn’t be that hard for SpaceX to build a suitable SCS ring compatible with the Hubble soft capture ring. Considering that they build their own NDS spec docking system. Just have to swapped out the NDS mechanism for the Hubble compatible mechanism like with the cupola dome.
That’s what I’d expect. That seems more likely to me then SpaceX/Polaris hiring out a Cygnus from NG.
“Crew Dragon and a modified Cygnus…”
Why would a Cygnus be needed for such a mission if there is already a Dragon planned?
“SpaceX have to come up with a working orbital EVA suit first”
Given Isaacman’s comments about this possibly being a future Polaris mission, and previous announcements that Polaris’ first mission will include a spacewalk in SpaceX EVA suits, it does appear to be the order they are planning to do things – first come up the suit, then spacewalk with the suit, then if this mission does include servicing, use the suits for that.
Presuming SpaceX will have untethered orbital EVA suits available for servicing Hubble. The Cygnus pressurized cargo module will be the airlock with external cargo racks and a place for the Hubble to be docked to. Also handrails and other EVA support equipment will be on the Cygnus without needing to modified the Crew Dragon for them. More importantly the Cygnus with additional propellants will lift the combined Dragon Cygnus stack up to the Hubble. The Crew Dragon by itself don’t have the delta-V to go to and back from a Hubble that will be raised back to initial deployment orbital altitude while carrying replacement parts. Essentially the Hubble servicing mission will use an unmodified Crew Dragon with a Cygnus as support module in a vehicle stack.
Given that the Cygnus is now dependent on the Falcon to launch it should be easy to get NG to work with SpaceX on it. SpaceX could then launch both from the Cape on the adjoining pads for Falcon.
It is likely that Northrop Grumman will need at least a couple of Falcon 9 flights to tidy them over after they expended their last set of RD-191 engines. Never mind that SpaceX could be their first non NASA customer for the Cygnus.
There is no need for multiple launch pads for a Hubble service mission with Dragon & Cygnus. Just launch them a few days apart from the same pad.
NG announced a couple of weeks ago that they have already purchased three Falcon 9 flights for Cygnus, with the first one next year after the last of the Ukrainian engines are used up. I expect they will be buying more given the likely delays in the ULA Vulcan and their proposed replacement vehicle with Firefly. Plus NG will probably get addicted to the SpaceX cost savings and flexible schedule.?
“Presuming SpaceX will have untethered orbital EVA suits…”
That’s a significant presumption. SpaceX and Polaris have only announced tethered EVA suits so far.
“The Cygnus pressurized cargo module will be the airlock…”
How and why?
How could Cygnus be the airlock when it only has one hatch, and no docking ability to dock to the Crew Dragon?
Moreover, why? Why have an airlock
of comparable volume towith 3 times the volume (27m^3 vs 9.3) of the pressurized space is it protecting? Venting the pressurized Cygnus would becomparable3 times the cost in expended air than venting the Crew Dragon capsule in the first place. It’s not like the shuttle or ISS where depressurizing an airlock expends far less air than doing the whole habitable space.Why add the expense and complexity vs. just doing tethered EVAs out of a depressurized capsule like Skylab 2 did to repair Skylab?
“don’t have the delta-v… while carrying replacement parts”
How many kilograms of cargo are they limited to carrying if they do the mission with a crew of 3 (1 to stay in the capsule and 2 on EVA) and still have enough delta-v for a safe return?
Tethered suits would be fine for servicing Hubble. The tethers just need to be long enough. Hubble would dock to some sort of dingus in the Crew Dragon trunk. Hubble spare parts might be stashed back there too.
There is the issue of volume and mass need for the carrying the umbilicals up, even if all the umbilicals do is acting as safety tether.
AFAIK none of the Crew Dragons have carry anything in their trunk so far. Due to center of gravity and excessive mass issues with the launch escape system if there is cargo in the trunk.
Hubble is currently down to 3 (of 6) gyros, with one of the working 3 balky, so gyro replacement if at all possible is definitely a priority
It’s down to 3 working gyros and extending their life by using only 2 at a time, with the capabilty of still operating (albeit with less precision) on only 1.
Isaacman’s really got something going here. Very cool, and good on him
Yes. Isaacman has been a very good influence on SpaceX anent pushing the envelope on missions involving crew.
Yes, and he indicated that the mission would cost NASA Zero Dollars as Polaris Dawn would pay for it. Not a bad deal.?
Does Polaris Dawn only get good press/tax dodge for it? Do they get exclusive use of it for a fraction of subsequent time?
Don’t know, guess they need to work that out after they figure if it’s possible to do it. Also they are a non-profit so they wouldn’t be paying taxes anyway.