Hubble, Hubble, Toil and Trouble

[darthgently]

Private mission to save the Hubble Space Telescope raises concerns, NASA emails show

https://www.npr.org/2024/05/16/1250250249/spacex-repair-hubble-space-telescope-nasa-foia

Edited May 17 by darthgently

[tater]

So put a NASA astronaut aboard. Problem solved.

[Kimera Industries]

I wonder if it would be less expensive to launch a new telescope.

[tater]

Alternately, they can just let the orbit decay, and it's 0% useful, but no stinky billionaires will have touched it (much better!).

Or Boeing could build them Starliner 2 with a Canadarm on it. Totally new, cost plus, only $20B and will fly maybe in 2034. Unless they need delays (still getting $2B/year!), for reasons.

[darthgently]

54 minutes ago, Kimera Industries said:

I wonder if it would be less expensive to launch a new telescope.

Launch cost, possibly.  Less expensive development cost?  No way

[tater]

3 hours ago, Kimera Industries said:

I wonder if it would be less expensive to launch a new telescope.

 

2 hours ago, darthgently said:

Launch cost, possibly.  Less expensive development cost?  No way

Less than $0 to have Isaacman pay for it?

[Kimera Industries]

I mean, it's free- how do they not want this? 

Red tape makes me mad. We need a deregulation of the space industry, just like we do with nuclear reactors. There's so much lost potential.

[darthgently]

23 minutes ago, tater said:

 

Less than $0 to have Isaacman pay for it?

I was only seeing the cost of a NASA developed scope.  But yeah, it would be great gift if a billionaire decided to put up a JWST or Roman scope just because.  Still, either way it costs someone something

[FleshJeb]

Guys, read some critiques of the Gilded Age, or why a high Gini coefficient is bad for economies and societies. None of this is theoretical, there are observed effects.

Or at least realize there’s a logical conflict between “Daddy billionaire will pay for it” and There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.

In any case, here are some known stats:

• Without service, Hubble will die sometime between 2030 and 2040. That’s at least an additional 20 percent of its existing service life. I don’t think trying to do a high technical risk maintenance mission just to get private astronauts some training is worth getting it for free.
• Hubble can only serve 1/5 of its requests for scope time.
• We have much better instruments available than were originally installed or retrofitted onto Hubble.
• The Nancy Grace Roman telescope will be going up soon, and it’s built on a KH-11 spysat that NASA got for free. There’s a spare KH-11 just sitting in storage. The optics are great, it just needs different instruments. We can put an additional better quality, longer lifespan telescope up for comparatively little money. (Caveat: NGR is slightly worse at some things than Hubble)

Wait for Hubble to be much closer to end of life before allowing private maintenance/training on it, and have replacement ready to go if they screw it up. It’s not worth the risk to a public resource, yet.

[kerbiloid]

12 hours ago, tater said:

Alternately, they can just let the orbit decay, and it's 0% useful

???

Once it has reach the LEO, they can attach a booster and a brake parachute to it, repair, and launch back to HEO.

By using the chute, they can make the process of descending much faster, so it will be a standard servicing procedure.

[DAL59]

Since it still has at least until the end of the decade, couldn't a cargo starship snatch it up and bring it back to a museum/repair facility on Earth?

[tater]

7 hours ago, FleshJeb said:

Guys, read some critiques of the Gilded Age, or why a high Gini coefficient is bad for economies and societies. None of this is theoretical, there are observed effects.

Literally everything in economics is theoretical, might as well be phrenology.

India and Luxembourg have about the same Geni score—that tells us exactly nothing about which country would be better to live in—Bangladesh is slightly lower than Switzerland. Like most simple, calculated metrics comparing populations... nonsense.

As for a private mission vs a NASA mission, all that matters is when they actually need to do something vs deorbiting—they clearly have some time, it's not like it needs to happen next year. Within that context of the actual WHEN, the next question to ask is if NASA has a plan for creating the capability they would prefer to service it. We all know the answer to that is there is no plan, they have no vehicle at all being worked on. If they decide to build such a vehicle tomorrow, we're talking about what, mid 2030s before it's around (smack in the middle of the stated end of life range). There's a 0% chance of them funding a crewed tug with a robot arm, airlock, etc, in the foreseeable future, so yeah, Hubble hits end of life with no servicing that way, ever.

Where the balance point is—risk to future observations lost from a failed service mission vs lost observations due to unpredictable end of life (eqp failures, etc, not just orbital decay)—I have no idea. Someone there could probably ballpark t and say it's worth the risk to send a service mission in 2032 (made up date) and beyond, but not before. NASA could also simply fund their OWN Dragon mission, perhaps adding an orbital module to the trunk with an arm? <shrug> This would likely add billions, obviously.

[Exploro]

On 5/17/2024 at 9:43 PM, tater said:

So put a NASA astronaut aboard. Problem solved.

It's more than just crewing the mission with NASA astronauts. The question is this; do the capabilities exist in the private space sector that can allow for a crewed servicing mission to the Hubble that mitigates as much of the risk to not only the crew tasked with the mission but also the orbiting piece of public property that is the Hubble Space Telescope? I would posit that it still does not have that capability at the present time. Even Polaris Dawn; as ambitious as it is, it still not enough of a demonstration to justify confidence that an Issacman/SpaceX venture to Hubble can be safely executed in the near term.

15 hours ago, Kimera Industries said:

I mean, it's free- how do they not want this? 

Red tape makes me mad. We need a deregulation of the space industry, just like we do with nuclear reactors. There's so much lost potential.

The issue here has nothing to do with red tape or regulations. Issacman is basically soliciting NASA with regards to a service which it has not officially asked for. It may be receptive to hearing ideas on the matter; as evident by it's dealing with Issacman and by responses to the agencies requests for information to other commercial space companies on a robotic Hubble orbital-boost mission. But that interest is not the same as a publicly stated (and congressionally funded) objective the agency intends to execute. Furthermore, Issacman is asking the Agency to stake its reputation on a mission that will be badly damaged if it were to allow such a mission to proceed it its name that results in the deaths of crew, the premature destruction of a public asset, or both. That alone would justify reticence on the part of NASA officials to proceed with a such a mission proposal. 

Edited May 19 by Exploro

[tater]

42 minutes ago, Exploro said:

It's more than just crewing the mission with NASA astronauts. The question is this; do the capabilities to exist in the private space sector that can allow for a crewed servicing mission to the Hubble that mitigates as much of the risk to not only the crew tasked with the mission but also the orbiting piece of public property that is the Hubble Space Telescope? I would posit that it still does not have that capability at the present time. Even Polaris Dawn; as ambitious as it is, it still not enough of a demonstration to justify confidence that an Issacman/SpaceX venture to Hubble can be safely executed in the near term.

The trade is risk from boost/repair vs risk from doing nothing (the only alternative).

I have no idea when the risk-reward heads into the right territory, but I'm confident that those curves cross at some point. It supposedly fails 2030-2040 assuming nothing bad happens before that (an eqp failure). Assuming it can be dealt with after such a failure, or once the end game for it is actually in play, then such a mission could wait until then, clearly. If the plausible failures include modes that make rendezvous and boost/repair impossible, then waiting too long could result in the certain loss of Hubble (tumbling?).

Where the risk outweighs the benefit? Again, unsure. What I do know is that NASA has exactly zero capability to deal with it for the foreseeable future.

[magnemoe]

6 hours ago, tater said:

Literally everything in economics is theoretical, might as well be phrenology.

India and Luxembourg have about the same Geni score—that tells us exactly nothing about which country would be better to live in—Bangladesh is slightly lower than Switzerland. Like most simple, calculated metrics comparing populations... nonsense.

As for a private mission vs a NASA mission, all that matters is when they actually need to do something vs deorbiting—they clearly have some time, it's not like it needs to happen next year. Within that context of the actual WHEN, the next question to ask is if NASA has a plan for creating the capability they would prefer to service it. We all know the answer to that is there is no plan, they have no vehicle at all being worked on. If they decide to build such a vehicle tomorrow, we're talking about what, mid 2030s before it's around (smack in the middle of the stated end of life range). There's a 0% chance of them funding a crewed tug with a robot arm, airlock, etc, in the foreseeable future, so yeah, Hubble hits end of life with no servicing that way, ever.

Where the balance point is—risk to future observations lost from a failed service mission vs lost observations due to unpredictable end of life (eqp failures, etc, not just orbital decay)—I have no idea. Someone there could probably ballpark t and say it's worth the risk to send a service mission in 2032 (made up date) and beyond, but not before. NASA could also simply fund their OWN Dragon mission, perhaps adding an orbital module to the trunk with an arm? <shrug> This would likely add billions, obviously.

Wealth inequality  is heavy screwed by tax rules, its often an benefit to have debt for tax reasons so you buy apartments and rent out in Switzerland and lots of places in Europe.  
Norwegians started to get an  breeding season because of kindergarten entry rules but birth wards was not set up for this. 
And the obvious Freefall reference http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff2900/fc02843.htm 

[tater]

39 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

Wealth inequality  is heavy screwed by tax rules, its often an benefit to have debt for tax reasons so you buy apartments and rent out in Switzerland and lots of places in Europe.  
Norwegians started to get an  breeding season because of kindergarten entry rules but birth wards was not set up for this. 
And the obvious Freefall reference http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff2900/fc02843.htm 

Set up controls, which creates odd incentive structures, which you then "solve" with more controls/odd incentive structures—repeat in perpetuity until bankrupt?

On topic, though, I think "billionaires bad" is a stupid take, but also think that boosting/fixing/improving Hubble "right now" is also probably not required (I'd need to find out more about the vehicle's health to say more)—and hence also a stupid take.

If Isaacman's offer has some expiration date, then that's another factor to consider. Is it worth a free fix in X years (factoring in risk to Hubble—crew risk is irrelevant to NASA since it's not NASA crew), vs no fix, ever (it likely gets deorbited unless NASA starts paying for rescue hardware pretty much right now (which ain't gonna happen)?

NASA as an involved customer can of course demand that any such free mission meet standards that they enumerate. They could demand a certain type of attachment system—with spacing from Dragon to Hubble to avoid RCS interactions. It might end up complex enough that it requires some sort of orbital module—heck, maybe they use it as a way to let SpaceX meet a Gateway resupply milestone? Test such a vehicle in LEO, but this one has an arm on it, and functions as an airlock for Dragon?

Bottom line is it seems to me that they would be smart to consider what such a mission might entail, thinking outside the box. "No, we're not really liking just using Dragon, but with X, Y, and Z added, we'd certainly consider it. We might even be able to work on it and partially fund it."

Edited May 19 by tater

[Exploro]

As of the end of last month, the Hubble was considered to be in good health. Three gryos are functional, though one of the three produced erroneous readings that caused the spacecraft to enter safe mode at least twice, once in April and again last November. According to source, the Hubble could be made to operate running on one of the healthier gyros for pointing operation with the second healthy gyro to serve as back up.

Edited May 19 by Exploro

[magnemoe]

4 hours ago, Exploro said:

As of the end of last month, the Hubble was considered to be in good health. Three gryos are functional, though one of the three produced erroneous readings that caused the spacecraft to enter safe mode at least twice, once in April and again last November. According to source, the Hubble could be made to operate running on one of the healthier gyros for pointing operation with the second healthy gyro to serve as back up.

One option might be an dock and boost, perhaps leaving an small independent module with secondary retraction wheels to take the load off the primary ones. 

Had an idea for an shuttle mod for starship, as in smaller crew space, larger cargo bay and multiple arms, designed for repairs, upgrades and recovery of satellites out to earths L points. 

[Kimera Industries]

Suddenly this scenario seems oddly reminiscent of the Space Shuttle. They wanted to develop it in time to re-boost Skylab, but the project was far too complex, and Shuttle never flew until the 80s.

[tater]

https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/orbitaldebris2019/orbital2019paper/pdf/6125.pdf

This has some concerning information in it.

 

Current Hubble orbit (per celestrak) is:

Quote

perigee height:	512 km
apogee height:	515 km

Hubble's slew rates are a function of altitude to integrate on a source for whatever amount of time, obviously—since the telescope is orbiting. The lower it gets, the faster it must slew to hold on the source. The claim is that things get bad below 500 km—and it's expected to drop 10 km in 2024.

The claim it is good to 2030-2040 seems delusional to me if the above paper is in the right ballpark for concerns. Perhaps 2030-2040 refers to the health of the telescope, NOT how it can function (based on orbital height).

The need for a reboost might be more profound than I realized. Does anyone have a better paper to read on the subject?

Edited May 20 by tater

[darthgently]

This should be interesting and they may address the commercial maintenance kerfuffle...

 

[mikegarrison]

So ... the Hubble might be non-functional due to a gyroscope problem. Or maybe they can remotely work around that and keep it functional, but for no more than about 10 years.

Or, they can let a group of people who have never even done a spacewalk (yet) try to fix it and boost it to a higher orbit, where it might stay up there for longer. Or might stop working tomorrow anyway. Of course, they could break it while trying to fix it, and possibly reduce its life by 10 years rather than extending it.

And the only people in the world who have experience at working on it say it's much more complicated to work on than people realize. That the risks are much higher than people think. And they had a spacecraft that was purpose-designed to do this kind of work, while the new guys have a capsule that was really just designed to taxi to the ISS and back.

And so that means: NASA hates private astronauts?

[Ricktoberfest]

12 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

So ... the Hubble might be non-functional due to a gyroscope problem. Or maybe they can remotely work around that and keep it functional, but for no more than about 10 years.

Or, they can let a group of people who have never even done a spacewalk (yet) try to fix it and boost it to a higher orbit, where it might stay up there for longer. Or might stop working tomorrow anyway. Of course, they could break it while trying to fix it, and possibly reduce its life by 10 years rather than extending it.

And the only people in the world who have experience at working on it say it's much more complicated to work on than people realize. That the risks are much higher than people think. And they had a spacecraft that was purpose-designed to do this kind of work, while the new guys have a capsule that was really just designed to taxi to the ISS and back.

And so that means: NASA hates private astronauts?

How many of the original repair astronauts had previously done repair work while on EVA?  Although it might be difficult, there’s no reason civilians can’t be trained in the same way NASA astronauts are trained to do this. They just don’t want to admit that you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to be an astronaut. Astronauts (nasa) have this reputation of being near geniuses. If your local plumber could do a repair in space, then why do we over-train astronauts and pay them for decades for 1 or 2 missions?  It used to make sense when they actually had to pilot a spacecraft. Now it’s just silly. 

[mikegarrison]

If my local plumber makes a mistake, I can call him back to fix it. Or call a different plumber, and take the first one to court. Whatever.

It's a little bit different for the HST.

And BTW, having known (or at least met) some astronauts and astronaut candidates, they are (as a group) not just average dudes who happen to have learned how to fly a plane.

Edited June 4 by mikegarrison

[PakledHostage]

5 hours ago, Ricktoberfest said:

They just don’t want to admit that you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to be an astronaut. 

So what are you suggesting? Send up some gum chewing, cap on backwards guys named Chad because the computer can fly now? Sure, some tourists have gone to orbit, but they only did so after extensive training and (to my knowledge) none of them has done an EVA, let alone done on orbit repair work. This sounds like a Dunning-Kruger effect case study in the making.