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The End of the Hubble Space Telescope

© Robert Davis

Despite the public outcry to save the Hubble, throughout this unfolding drama, the powers that be have maintained their position that a Shuttle mission cannot and will not be undertaken to service the venerable space telescope. Politicians, academics, and activists have thrown in together in an effort to persuade the White House and NASA that Hubble is of such inestimable value that it must be saved, but they have never really seemed to be gaining any ground, despite polls showing huge public support for preserving the telescope.

Although the analysis leading to this conclusion has been hotly contested, it at least admits of a fairly straightforward discussion: a manned mission to service Hubble, which will break down and, later, descend to break up in the atmosphere if unserviced in the next few years, is alleged to be too dangerous. This claim hinges on the post-Columbia view that the Shuttle needs to be able to dock with the International Space Station in the event of an emergency, simply as a matter of responsible safety measures--and from the orbit required to service Hubble, the Space Shuttle Orbiter lacks the propulsive power to then change its orbit to rendezvous with the ISS.

A daring compromise proposal began to circulate--a proposal for a robotic servicing mission in lieu of a manned one. Preliminary design work was officially undertaken, and the initial development proceeded in parallel with the robotic mission to rendezvous with Hubble and safely deorbit it when the time comes. But after review by hundreds of experts and analysis of entire volumes of data, together with findings by the National Academy of Sciences that the robotic servicing mission had only the slimmest chance of success, the official view has hardened against saving Hubble.

In short, no robotic servicing mission is being contemplated any longer.

The deorbit mission is itself quite daunting. The autonomous rendezvous and docking technology required is not available off the shelf, and the safe deorbit of something the size of Hubble is no small task. The telescope will not burn up completely under the heat of re-entry; rather, numerous large chunks will survive the perils of the atmosphere and crash into the planet's surface. It is difficult to predict where this debris will end up, and no one wants to see Hubble's remains obliterating residential areas around the globe. Consequently, a safe deorbit (and one being executed autonomously at that) is a highly intricate affair.