RedNova News - NASA Decides to Abandon, Not Repair, Deteriorating Hubble Telescope
NASA plans to bury the Hubble Space Telescope rather than fix it, the space agency revealed Monday.
Outgoing NASA chief Sean O'Keefe made the announcement as he unveiled the agency's $16.46 billion budget proposal for 2006.
Hubble, which was launched in 1990, is widely considered the crown jewel of U.S. space science. Astronomers, politicians and members of the public have been lobbying for a mission to extend its life.
But O'Keefe says NASA's priorities are to meet President Bush's call for exploration of the moon and Mars. He also said the space agency had to meet obligations to finish construction of the international space station and launch a space shuttle this year.
NASA will continue financing Hubble operations until its failure, which is expected sometime after 2007. O'Keefe plans to bring the telescope out of orbit and dispose of it in the atmosphere by 2013.
''It is my judgment call,'' O'Keefe says. He cited two reports:
* The Columbia Accident Investigation Board's safety requirements for shuttle flights rule out Hubble repairs by astronauts. The board was formed after seven astronauts were killed in the disintegration of the space shuttle Columbia in 2003.
* A National Research Council panel maintained last year that a robot repair mission in 2007 was technologically too risky.
After a public outcry last year when O'Keefe disclosed plans to let Hubble die, the director backed off. He publicly supported a robotic repair mission, which will get a NASA review next month.
But by removing money from this budget for a robotic rescue, the window of opportunity to revive such an effort before Hubble's batteries or stabilizing gyroscopes fail becomes much narrower.
''The lack of money for a robotic Hubble mission is both an opening move in what the White House certainly knows will be a heated interaction with Congress and a 'logical' response to the NRC report,'' says John Logsdon of George Washington (D.C.) University.
The House Science Committee plans a hearing on NASA's budget and Hubble this month.
''Hubble's best days are ahead of it, not behind it,'' says Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md. ''I will fight in the Senate this year to fund a servicing mission to Hubble by 2008.''
A second science mission, the 2015 Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter, is not financed yet. NASA's Craig Steidle says the nuclear reactor needed for the mission was too advanced a technology to pull off by 2015.
''My first reaction to the budget is quite positive,'' says Lennard Fisk, who heads the Research Council's Space Studies Board. He notes that the budget includes financing for a Mars orbiter, a Pluto mission and a infrared telescope for 2011.
