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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."
Sometimes you have to look on the bright side.
Since the US doesnt have a replacement planned to be sent up until 2010, and that by not servicing the HUbbell it may die by 2007.... Bringing it towards the ISS would allow it to be refitted and keep science moving forward!
...to find the Beagle?
Maybe the Universities and goverments that use the Hubble can take over management of it. Nasa should give them a shot.
Modern telecommunications satellites are designed for a useful on-orbit life of 10-15 years. This limit is set by the total fuel load they can carry at launch - a constraint that stems from the maximum liftoff mass of today's launch vehicles. The costs associated with a telecommunications satellite's procurement, launch, insurance and operation can exceed $250 million - while such spacecraft typically generate revenues of more than $50 million per year.
At the end of these satellites' useful lifetimes - which is determined by the depletion of their on-board propellant - the spacecraft are boosted into a disposal orbit and junked. In the majority of these cases, the satellites' payloads (relay transponders and associated electronics) continue to function nominally at the time of their forced retirement.
Currently, there are no viable means of prolonging the useful life of telecommunications satellites, resulting in the wasteful loss of valuable assets every year.
Doesn't NASA have a AAA card? They tow for free, you know...
The correct answer is:
Spend that money on ground based observatories with advanced systems that allow better than hubble imaging from earth.
I feel that we need to save the Hubble, even if it is just for nostalgic reasons. Perhaps it just seems absurd that we dump all of our old equipment into the ocean when we're done with them, but really, I think we need to preserve the things that have given us insight into the universe and remember them. Besides, how might Mr. Hubble (have) like(d) that we just dump this huge telescope named after him once it becomes slightly antiquated?
"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."
Sounds like some kind of extortion scam to me...
Pay me to save Hubble or something could happen to your fancy schmancy new one.
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Order shall return.
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>
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I attach below the text of a letter recently sent to European astronomers, regarding the demise of Hubble support:
Dear colleague,
As you may know, NASA has decided to cancel all further servicing missions to Hubble. Servicing Mission 4, originally scheduled for next Spring/Summer, was designed to refurbish HST and enable it to continue operating in the current efficient and successful way. NASA has decided that all future Shuttle missions will be devoted to the International Space Station. Hence, no upgrade in capability or maintenance is planned for HST. A direct consequence is, of course, the end of WFC3 and COS as HST instruments. A discussion is developing, however, on the possibility of launching one or both of these instruments as part of a "fast-track 2 meter class telescope" mission.
Without the replacement of failed gyros there is a high probability that HST will have to be operated in a two-gyro mode relatively soon, with substantial restrictions on the science observations. A controlled de-orbit of the spacecraft will have to be achieved using a special robotic mission at some time in the future as yet unspecified.
There is little we Europeans can do directly to change NASA's decision which, apparently, is final. We believe strongly, however, that it should be made known how universal the feeling of disappointment is within the scientific community. As European members of the Space Telescope Users Committee (STUC), we have asked the ST-ECF to open a web page where you can send comments on the fate of HST and on the loss for the scientific community. We encourage you to share your views with us, visiting the site and sending e-mails to the address given.
The site is now available at http://www.stecf.org/SM_cancellation.html
Best regards,
Eric Emsellem and Monica Tosi
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that this guy can do it faster better cheaper....
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I think India is planning something like this. It's an ion drive powered robot. It would be able to tub things into the right orbit and perform some limited maintenence tasks. It wouldn't be a cure all but it would probably pick up a lot of slack on the cheap. I'm guessing it could be refueled with a tank of fuel launched up hear it.
It would be a nice private venture. I could see a realistic market for it with all the telecommunications stuff up there.
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It seems to me that this technology could be used to clean up a lot of the space junk orbiting the earth. Set up an intergalactic recycling station and move all of the inoperable satellites to it and strip them down for parts. Which leads to another question. Are there laws that dictate ownership of property once it leaves the planet and is in orbit?
I know it takes millions of dollars to run the science behind Hubble, or any other space project. Apparently, it takes a whole team of rocket scientists just to keep the thing from crashing into Tucson or something.
But why can't NASA just give the telescope to Wingo's company and be done with it? Just give them the keys and be done with it. Sign something requiring that they drop it in the Pacific (or in the Sun, or something) when they're done.
If Orbital Recovery can make a go selling science time to astronomers, then let them try it. Or they can sell time to people looking for the Face on Mars. Or they can fly up the next Survivor crew with some duct tape and an oxygen tank to play "voted off the Hubble". Whatever the free market wants.
I'm not usually one to say the "free market" is better at making decisions, but NASA has gotten its investment back. Instead of plowing it into the seabed, give it away -- think of it as the new-frontier version of salvage rights.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
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.
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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:
- It could potentially be used for 24/7 monitoring of targets (which you can't do from earth)
- We could use it to watch for dinosaur killers
- Automate it for long term survey duty (Oort cloud, etc.)
- 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.
- 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
Currently, there are no viable means of prolonging the useful life of telecommunications satellites, resulting in the wasteful loss of valuable assets every year.
The problem is that a refueling mission would probably cost as much as a new satellite (not to mention reducing the fuel capacity of the orginal satellite by allocating precious mass budget to a refueling port and subsystems). Which is better: spending $250 million every 8 years to refuel an aging commsat (a mission that might bork the commsat anyway) or spending $250 million every 10 years to replace the commsat with a brand new one?
Until we find an ultra-cheap way to get to GEO, the commsats will continue to be replaced. Perhaps cheaper ion engines, with their high specific impulse, would enable longer-lived commsats.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
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.
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Once the telescope becomes useless, it seems to me that it should be considered Junk, and ripe for salvage. A private company could take it over and sell online time on it to those who want to peep into other people's windows.
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This all seems to imply that our so-called presence in space is really only limited to a very small volume of space and that any manned or unmanned missions are only capable of reaching certain specific places. There is currently no ability whatsoever to actually travel freely in space. That should be our longterm goal. To be able to go anywhere we want without worry about carrying our lunch along. In other words, we need to be able to generate our own fuel as we go along. There are options in this area but they don't seem to be at the forefront of research. One almost has to wonder if the governments of the Earth aren't afraid of such free-flying craft. And perhaps they should be.
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>Since the JWST will be at the L2 point, servicing will be impossible."
You can still service it there. What that should have said is it will be impossible ***with the shuttle***.
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.
::cue music::
For a lawnmower blade to cut your grass or a satellite that's out of gas, use eBay! Use eBay! For a Beagle that has missed his mark or a spark plug wire that wouldn't spark - Use eBay! ::/cue music::
What is it about this comment that make me think of commercials for eBay?
The L2 point is beyond the moon. We currently do not have the capabilities to launch manned missions that far out.
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The James Webb Space Telescope is really not a replacement for Hubble. JWST is primarily an IR telescope, and HST is a visible light and UV telescope. Different but complimentary missions. Even if JWST goes up, the loss of HST prematurely will hurt science.
-G "We love to buy books, because we are buying the belief we have time to read them" - Warren Zevon
L2 is a point about 1.5 million kilometers away from the earth, essentially right "behind" the earth if you look from a vantage point near the sun. This means it's about four times farther away than the moon - much farther away from the earth than any human has ever flown. It would take an enormous amount of time and fuel (and thus money) to get anything out there, so it's something you don't do very often.
Yeah, that is one thing that really annoys me about the current approach to space travel. It is way too mission-oriented. Frankly, it doesn't make logical sense to build "craft X for mission Y" and "craft W for mission Z". It would make much more sense to make a multipurpose "Craft XYZ" that could perform missions Y, Z, Q, and R, either with different vehicles, maybe even on the same vehicle after some refueling and maintenence. (and yes, it would make sense for this craft to remain out in space for the whole time)
No one wanted their satellites repaired at NASA prices. It's cheaper to launch a new satellite.
The HST is a big piece of equipment -- we all know that it is expensive to put *anything* in orbit, why let it burn up into the atmosphere/crash into ocean?
Tow the HST to the ISS. Once there, maybe some equipment/raw material can be salvaged (at least) -- if the HST cannot continue to be used and maintained by the ISS crew (MUCH preferd). If we are 'serious' about using the ISS for a while, why not give them something worthwhile to do? hell, is there a reason why you wouldnt (all things being equal) line up all the rest of the hubble-like space ships near the ISS? If nothing else, this will establish a "destination" in space that acts as a central hub for work in space....
Hell, arent the panels on the HST worthwhile? If they can tow it over to the IIS, maybe something on the HST might find itself usefull, either now or in the future. Spare parts? Sheet metal? Something.
I know someone will say "the panels are old/different voltage/designed for another purpose" or "its cheaper just to launch whatever you need than tow the HST" but my response is simple, if we are going to try and make this a permanent behabviour of man (off-world habitat) then we have to learn to be more nimble, adaptable and less dependant on MASSIVE planning efforts for every screw, bolt and hammer that gets into space.
We have to learn to utilize resources *AROUND THEM* and Make It Work. Hell, the ISS could be the 'hotel' for HST repairmen at least....
Which of the wavelengths that the hubble can shoot which ground based cannot will fail to be served far, far better by Webb?
The UV. Our atmosphere is opaque to the UV, and JWST, being an infrared optimised telescope, isn't going to be capable of observing the UV at all.
Its important to note that JWST is not a simple upgrade to HST. It has a very different mission and set of instruments. Its not just HST with a bigger mirror.
That is a very good point. Your thoughts about governments in relation to space travel certainly match most governments' current ways of thinking. It seems that because of the rapid development of technology, no one is particularly concerned with long term solutions. Instead, there is this frantic dash to get things done, because apparently we cannot be satisfied with where we are at. I'm not saying that we should be content with the state of the world (or technology, for that matter), but everything tends to be hectic for the wrong reasons. Why not stop throwing poorly built spacecraft and satellites into space? Can't we pause and take time to develop safe nuclear power for any space application? I have already seen examples of proposed probes that use nuclear power, and do so relatively cheaply. If a space telescope had a halfway decent power facility then we would not have to worry about sending repair vehicles. It should then be capable of repairing itself. I'll stop my random rant here, but I think these are things to consider if they haven't been already.
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Are there enforcable requirements that satelites be disposed of responsibly? What is to keep a company that goes bankrupt to allow their satelites to crash into terra firma any-old where?
THIS SPACE FOR RENT
The shuttle was supposed to be your Craft XYZ. Unfortunately, it became Craft UVWXYZ which cut down on its fitness for duty. Too many conflicting design constraints.
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The L2 point is beyond the Earth's umbra and lies in the region of Earth's penumbra called the annular umbra. Further the planed orbit for the JWST will not exactly be at L2 but rather in a more stable configuration around L2.
Earth-Sun L2 and shadows
The reason we won't put the Hubble at the L2 point is because Bush can't pronounce Lagrange. Ergo, no announcement. Thus, no funding.
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In 2090, on the 100th anneversary of the launching of Hubble, where will it be? Will history forgive us for dropping such a significant artifact in the ocean?
All seem to agree that the risk of letting Hubble fall out of orbit without some additional guidance is too high. (I have read figures stating that it'd be about a 1 in 700 chance of a fatality from the debris.) Apparently we're going to send a robot tug to move it.
but if we go to all the trouble of developing a robot tug to move Hubble, why are we moving it down?
It's going to be decommissioned eventually, but we can save it for future historians. We just need to put it in a high and stable enough orbit, and eventually someone will recover it. (Hopefully for history, possibly for salvage.) Don't know who, don't know when, but if humanity continues to climb into space it will happen eventually.
I realize it will take a more robust tug to do this, but it's not like we're in a hurry. We can put an ion thruster on the tug and let it boost for months if we need to. Heck, let's take it all the way to a Lagrange point.
History will thank us if we do.
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
Every day, Hubble archives 3 to 5 gigabytes of data and delivers between 10 and 15 gigabytes to astronomers all over the world. See science highlights. As of March 2000, Hubble has:
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You might see them reboost HST into a high orbit, but it's NOT going to ISS.
Human genome = 3 billion base pairs = 6 GBit. Windows + Office = 20 Gbit. Which is more impressive?
Most Slashdot readers will be too young for this one, but this it practically a script out of Salvage 1. Andy Griffith played the salvage engineer turned astronaut who first rescues a falling satellite, and later goes after the descent stage of a LEM.
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Ok, this is a great idea... attach a "tug" to a satellite once it's used up it's propellant.
Well, if a satellite is good for 10-15 years before it would need a "tug", why not just give it a "tug" right at the start?
Here's my idea... lets build a fleet of space tugs and store them at the ISS. Whenever a satellite is launched, launch it with a small amount of propellant... just enough to do some basic maneuvering to get the orbital situation correct immediately after launch. Then, via a standard adapter that would be built on all new satellites, a tug would be sent from the ISS to mate with the satellite. From there on out, the tug would take care of the satellite's propulsion and perhaps even provide the satellite with back-up solar power.
Think of the possibilities of this system... sattelites would be lighter due to the decreased amount of propellant onboard, thus, cheaper to launch. The space tugs themselves could be fairly cheap to build and launch, especially in quantity. Space engineers would also gain a standard system for propulsion, so it's likely that the same set of ground controls could be utilized for every satellite fit with a standard space tug.
There might be more benefits, and I'm sure there are a few draw-backs, but I can't think of any at the moment.
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Scientifically speaking, I think it might be much more productive to admit that the ISS is a scientific and economic failure. Stop shuttle flights to the ISS, send all remaining shuttles in pairs (one as a life boat) to service Hubble for as long as it lasts. Stop throwing good money (and amazing optical/UV telescopes) after bad!