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Hubble is in trouble. The Hubble Space Telescope ("HST") was designed for and has always relied on astronauts to replace gyros and batteries that wear out and to replace aging instruments and broken modules with new ones. New gyros, batteries are dying. Two brand new intruments with state-of-the-art technologies and capabilities now wait on the ground for a launch.
The Columbia disaster has caused NASA to refocus on detailed plans for human saftey, even if that means downscoping their work or, in the case of Hubble, perhaps scrapping plans to repair it at all. Based on a new accounting system at NASA, the cost of a shuttle launch has increased from about $600M to $2B, though many people believe that much of this increase is more administrative than real. A robotic mission is in the planning stage in collaboration with large-aerospace firms who are anxious to use this type of robotic technology in space for a wide range of future purposes. The costs aren't yet clear but seem less that those of a shuttle launch.
One way or the other, a "de-orbit module" (or DEM) must be attached to Hubble in order to guide HST into the Pacific Ocean before it starts to tumble an uncontrollable state. This is a legal requirement. So some sort of robotic-like mission is coming, and the question is whether it can perform other tasks to extend Hobble's lifetime. The issue of "whether to return" is therefore really an issue of "how to return". And answering that question requires the development of a plan and a budget to make the work happen.
Hubble Space Telescope in orbit
Date Quick Chronology of Events through 2004 2002 Shuttle "Servicing Mission 3" ("SM3") successfully launched, SM4 approved for late 2004 2/03 Challenger disaster; all future shuttle flighrs on hold 1/04 Pres. Bush announces a new NASA vision commonly known as "Moon to Mars" or "M2M" 4/04 NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe permanently cancels all future shuttle flights to HST 6/04 Under intense public pressure O'Keefe approves HST robotic repair design studies 6/04 Presidential Commission recommends NASA long-term focus on M2M and manned flight planning & engineering over science missions 8/04 Tiger team at NASA-Goddard begin robotic mission design 11/04 Initial Goddard robotic design complete and ready for critical reviews. Early cost estimate $1.3B 11/04 National Academy of Sciences recommends shuttle HST repair.. The report concludes that robotic repair is impractical and unacceptably risky. (full report) 11/04 Congress allocates (and President signs) FY06 budget with $0.3B allocated for repair design studies 12/04 O'Keefe announces resignation as NASA Administrator effecive Feb 2005 Starting in January 2005 the situation became rather hectic, and it has remained that way ever since. If Congress is confused about what to do, then so is almost everyone else. Funds to study the return options to Hubble were withdrawn from the federal budget by the Executive Branch. Top-level leadership at NASA became opaque, and by March trhere were signs of obfuscation (see the updates below). The Government Accounting Office reviewed NASA's cost estimate of a shuttle repair mission, $1.7 - 2.4B, and found that it didn't include key and potentially expensive items related to in-orbit shuttle inspection and repair procedures. The robotic repair work at Goddard successfully underwent a first internal review, and work was proceeding to the next review point in March despite the funding threats. Not just the budget, but also safety issuses dominate the discussion, and NASA seems unable to cope at times with the politcal storm in which it finds itself.
An early, careful and highly readable but somewhat outdated review of the technical issues from NASA's Space Telescope Science Institute:
hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/future/An analysis of the larger but increasingly complex situation as of 28 January 2005:
www.space.com/news/hubble_wars_050124.htmlA companion article on the response to the situation by astronomers:
www.space.com/scienceastronomy/hubble_reaction_050121.htmlRead about budget issues:
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27653-2005Jan21.html and
www.space.com/news/hubble_wars_050124.html
Key Legislative Committee Memberships:
:-- U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science
Dave Reichert, R-WA 8th district, and Brian Baird, D-WA 3rd district, area serve on this committee
:-- U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation
Maria Cantwell, D-WA serves on this committee
:-- President's Council of Advisors on Science & TechnologySelected February Updates
2 Feb: Accounts of House Committe hearings on Hubble held 2 February.
8 Feb: Hubble Decision a Blow To Goddard Engineers (You'll need a free password to access this article.) NASA HQ precluded a shuttle mission a year ago, and now it is pulling the plug on planning for a robotic repair. Here's the first paragraph:NASA decided to scrap plans to service the Hubble Space Telescope without giving its engineers the chance they had been promised to show whether a pathbreaking mission to do the job with a robot handyman is feasible.Selected March Updates
3 March: NASA's claim that risk, not money, lies behind their decision to cancel all future shuttle repairs to Hubble. So where's the detailed risk analysis?. Here are provocative excerpts from the article.Washington, DC, Mar. 3 (UPI) -- NASA officials have claimed they performed a risk analysis before deciding to cancel the last space-shuttle servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope, but no such analysis was ever done....3 March: NASA clains that the next shuttle servicing mission (SM4) to Hubble will cost $1B or more; the estimates run as high as $2.4B! OIddly, all past servicing missions cost $300-$400M, and the proposed next (SM4) mission is not much different in character or scope from the others.NASA historian Steven Dick...described the process by which that decision was made and revealed that, in fact, no formal risk analysis had been completed.
Why the cost increase? NASA syas that SM4 to Hubble will be charged a share of standard shuttle operations for the first time -- a substantial budget hit that, apparently, isn't being applied to the International Space Station ("ISS") program.
What's the evidence that shuttle costs are not being charged to the ISS? It's well hidden. See the summary NASA budget (pdf format) and look carefully at the figures. If the ISS budget were being charged for shuttle operations then its budget would have to exceed the cost of shuttle operations, $4.5B. Instead the ISS budget line is just $1.86B. You'll see that the ISS budget (5 shuttle launches) is roughly the same as the entire Universe program (Hubble and a lot more; no shuttle launch to HST next year).
9 March: This letter from Sen. Barbara Mikulski (pdf format) dated 2 March 2005 makes her expectations of Congressional budgeting for a Hubble repair mission and NASA's response to it very clear. Sen. Mikulski is the ranking Democrat on a critical Senate funding and policy committee.
12 March: This letter to various government officials is the official response of the professional astronomical community. (pdf format) 21 March: This NY Times article appeared containing the poignant and explicit comments about NASA's plans for Hubble."They are doing it totally from the top down," said Robert P. Kirshner, a12 April: The quotation belowcomes from a missive of the Mars Society (www.marssociety.org) to its members. For more information from the House of Representatives' Commerce Committee see commerce.senate.gov/pdf/griffin.pdf
professor of astronomy at Harvard and the president of the American
Astronomical Society. He said the impetus for the Moon-Mars program came
"from the president, the political people," and added, "That doesn't make
it evil, but that's not where the community of scientists saw the
opportunity."
For example, Dr. Kirshner said, the last 10-year report by
astrophysicists, in 2002, assumed that shuttle astronauts would be sent to
the Hubble Space Telescope to replace batteries and gyroscopes and to add
new instruments, two of which are being built.
But under the full-cost accounting system, Dr. Kirshner said, the Hubble
budget would have to bear the full cost of the mission, estimated at a
billion dollars or more, which is about a fifth of all NASA science
spending that is not related to the shuttle or the space station." In confirmation hearing testimony before the Senate Commerce Committee today, NASA Administrator nominee Dr. Mike Griffin called for dramatically accelerating the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) program and "revisiting" the decision of former NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe to desert the Hubble Space Telescope. "Asked about Hubble, Griffin explained how the space telescope has revolutionized our understanding of the universe in a way not seen since the development of Einstein's theory of relativity. He then said that the space telescope would definitely continue to be of enormous value if we could save it, and wasted no time in dispatching the red-herring "robotic repair" option. "That should be taken off the table," Griffin said, adding that it now comes down to a decision to send the Shuttle to repair and upgrade Hubble as originally planned, or losing the instrument. He then characterized O'Keefe's decision to cancel the Shuttle servicing mission to Hubble as having been made in haste in the immediate aftermath of the Columbia accident, and said that the decision needed to be "revisited" after the Shuttle returns to flight this May."
This page does not advocate any particular position, nor should any position be implied. It will be updated only infrequently. Please forgive all typos and hurried editing. -- Bruce Balick
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