NASA has issued a new request for information seeking commercial ideas to reboost or service the Hubble Space Telescope before its anticipated orbital decay in the early 2030s. The agency wants to know which companies have the capability to capture the aging observatory, raise its altitude, or guide it to a controlled reentry.
The Hubble Space Telescope has been orbiting Earth for 36 years. Without intervention, it will likely plunge back into the atmosphere between 2033 and 2034. The last time NASA raised Hubble’s orbit was in 2002 during a Space Shuttle servicing mission. The final shuttle flight in 2009 did not boost the telescope’s altitude, and the retirement of the shuttle fleet left Hubble with no way to maintain its orbit.
Requirements for a 2032 Intervention
The request for information, released on Thursday, asks companies to outline their current and near-term capabilities. NASA specifically wants to know if firms can capture Hubble and boost it to at least 373 miles (600 km) above Earth. Raising the orbit to this level would likely keep the telescope in space for another 25 years.
Proposals must ensure the mission does not harm the observatory and must be executable by 2032. The contractor would need to provide the launch vehicle, the servicing spacecraft, mission operations, and crew if necessary. NASA is not committing to buying a mission yet. Officials want to gauge interest, estimate costs, and identify which companies have a realistic chance of reaching Hubble before it burns up.
Orbital dynamicists predict Hubble’s altitude will continue to drop due to atmospheric drag. The telescope has already lost about 70 miles (113 km) of altitude since 2002. It currently orbits at roughly 292 miles (470 km). A reboost to 373 miles (600 km) would significantly extend its operational life.
Lessons from Previous Attempts
This is not the first time NASA has looked for external help. In 2022, billionaire Jared Isaacman approached NASA with a proposal to fund a servicing mission using SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft. That effort included plans to attach a rescue pod with new gyroscopes to fix Hubble’s pointing system. NASA also received eight responses to a 2022 request for information, including a joint robotic proposal from Astroscale and Momentus.
Agency officials ultimately decided not to pursue those plans in 2024. At the time, Mark Clampin, head of NASA’s astrophysics division, described the proposals as notional concepts. The landscape has changed since then. Isaacman is now the NASA administrator, and the commercial satellite servicing industry has matured.
Recent developments include Northrop Grumman launching a sophisticated robotic servicing satellite earlier this year with DARPA. Smaller startups like Astroscale and Starfish Space have secured contracts for servicing and refueling demonstrations with the US Space Force and NASA. These advancements make a 2032 intervention more plausible than it appeared four years ago.
NASA also learned from a recent attempt to rescue the Swift telescope. The agency awarded a $30 million contract to Katalyst Space Technologies last year. The startup built a rescue satellite and launched it within nine months. The mission got within 6 miles (10 km) of Swift before ground teams halted the approach due to technical issues. The project proved that servicing missions do not always require billions of dollars, though Hubble is a much larger asset than Swift.
Current Status and Future Outlook
NASA currently has no funding allocated for a Hubble rescue mission. The agency is gathering information to understand the market and potential costs. If a mission moves forward, NASA would likely provide more time and resources than the Swift project allowed.
A crewed mission like the one Isaacman proposed in 2022 is unlikely. SpaceX plans to retire its Crew Dragon fleet by 2030. Isaacman noted in a post on X that he expects the new request to draw interest from robotics companies rather than human spaceflight operators.
Hubble remains a unique asset. It observes the universe in visible and ultraviolet light. Newer telescopes like Webb and Roman focus on infrared. Astronomers will not have a direct successor with Hubble’s capabilities until the Habitable Worlds Observatory launches in the 2040s.
“Hubble still has important science ahead of it, and we should be looking at every reasonable opportunity to keep it delivering for as long as possible,” Isaacman said in a statement. “If there are innovative and cost-effective ways to extend the life of an asset already on orbit, we owe it to the American taxpayer and the scientific community to explore them.”
NASA will accept responses to the request for information until November 30. The agency will use this data to determine if a commercial rescue mission is feasible and how to structure a potential contract.
Source: Ars Technica
