Hubble glitch renews talk about private servicing mission
spacenews.com
A problem with the Hubble Space Telescope has renewed discussion about whether and how NASA might approve a private mission to service it.

I cannot express just how much I want this to happen.

No attempt = hubble will fail and reenter

Attempt(failure) = same

Attempt(success) = hubble continues groundbreaking science and, after some time, can be brought back to earth via Starship to become a museum piece that inspires generations!!

  • sorghum@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    42·
    1 year ago

    I mean, Elon did put his Tesla into orbit out to Mars. A PR boost to save one of the most beloved science projects sounds like a winner after the crap he’s been pulling with x.com fka twitter.

    • Zippy@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      Not sure his rockets have the ability to bring back a large and heavy load. Currently the landing of the first stage requires an empty vessel and the second stage certainly does not have the capability. He would need to engineer a brand new rocket to do just this.

      • sorghum@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        21·
        1 year ago

        The starliner configuration is designed to take 100 people into leo and back. I think that alone could be close to the 12 tons that Hubble weighs. It’ll be interesting to see capabilities when the variants are produced, specifically the cargo version for me.

        • n00b001@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          It would be great if/when that happens, but it’s a few years off the Elon deadline ATM, and doesn’t look close to operation soon

          • sorghum@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            2·
            1 year ago

            I think the current mission being explored is docking a dragon trunk and boosting it and servicing it. That could buy us enough time until starship cargo is ready. STS-125 added a docking port for capture, which is going to be used by a satellite to deorbit if it comes time to do that.