Space Tug to Save the Hubble?

Aglassis writes "In an article at SpaceRef, the CTO of Orbital Recovery Corporation claims that his company will be able to develop a space tug that could save the Hubble Space Telescope (from becoming 'a ballisticly implanted reef in the Pacific') by either moving it into a much higher stable orbit, or by moving it to the ISS where it could be maintained and operated. Some of the reasons that he cites are that the Hubble's replacement, the James Webb Space Telescope, could be delayed or suffer some sort of failure. Since the JWST will be at the L2 point, servicing will be impossible."

Comments

Private management

[memmel2]

Maybe the Universities and goverments that use the Hubble can take over management of it. Nasa should give them a shot.

Business a little slow?

[CaptainAlbert]

Is there actually a market for orbital recovery? Apart from Hubble, which it would be nice to have back for sentimental value, I can't think that there's much up there than needs recovering. Most satellites are so many years out of date that it makes no commercial sense to get them back again - you'd only have to re-launch them anyway, at which point you might as well have spent the money on new ones.

Equally, no-one needs to run the risk of trying to repair things that are orbiting the Earth; it's guaranteed to be cheaper to junk it and build a new one.

Methinks this guy is playing on popular support for the "keep Hubble" campaign to raise the profile of an otherwise unviable business.

</devil's advocate>

Re:Um

[AKAImBatman]

Don't be so sure about valuable assets. NASA proposed a space tug when it was building the Space Shuttle. The idea was that a tug would pull satellites to a lower orbit where the Shuttle could reach them. At that point, the shuttle would be responsible for repairing, refueling and refurbishing. If necessary, even bring them back to Earth.

Here's the problem: No one wanted their satellites back. By the time their fuel was spent, they were old technology that would be replaced by a new satellite. The shuttle had bet the bank on the economic theory that people wanted their space-stuff back and lost.

Re:Wrong

[rw2]

Which of those advanced systems are going to allow for observing at wavelengths to which our atmosphere is opaque?

None.

Which of the wavelengths that the hubble can shoot which ground based cannot will fail to be served far, far better by Webb?

The fact is that most of the work being done by hubble can be done from the ground today and what cannot is being replaced by Webb with greatly improvments. This is by design.

Why?

[MarkusQ]

The correct answer is:

Spend that money on ground based observatories with advanced systems that allow better than hubble imaging from earth.

Why is that the "correct" answer? It's a crime to deorbit large objects when they are potentially so much more valuable where they are.

Just off the top of my head:

1. It could potentially be used for 24/7 monitoring of targets (which you can't do from earth)
2. We could use it to watch for dinosaur killers
3. Automate it for long term survey duty (Oort cloud, etc.)
4. Even if the Hubble is never used as an observatory again, it does consist of a lot of parts / raw materials that could someday prove useful.
5. It may be a future tourist attraction

If somebody actually spent some time on it, I'll bet they could come up with a dozen more good uses.

Further, having a proven tug capability (tested in a situation that wasn't life threatening) would be very valuable in and of itself.

To me, this looks like the right answer.

-- MarkusQ

The politics of it all....

[Mazzie]

I can't believe that NASA is even considering abandoning the Hubble.

Let me get this straight. They are going to abandon a working spacecraft, that continues to revolutionize deep space imaging, on the whim of a politician spewing typical election year rhetoric?

I think anything and everything should be done to maintain the Hubble for as long as possible, or until it truely becomes obsolete. I could understand the decision if they had a far superior telescope already in space and functioning, but this seems a bit off the wall.

Not sure if I interpreted the article correctly, but it seems they won't have a superior telescope in space for 1 or 2 years after the Hubble has been abandoned?

Also, the tree hugger in me has to ask. Why are we willing to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to colonize other planets, when we are slowly destroying our own. Seems like our priorities are just a bit out of whack.