Can SpaceX save the Hubble Space Telescope from falling to Earth?

now it might seem like all the focus has been on jwst lately whereas the Hubble Space Telescope or hsd has been left to rot by the wayside but that couldn't be further from the truth HST is the most productive telescope we've ever had been useful to just about every single field in astronomy from solar system to Stellar formation to galaxies both near and far and that science is not slowing down any time soon because the over subscription rate so the total amount of time that astronomers propose to use Hubble to do their science you know within the span of a year compared to physically the amount of time available on the Hubble Space Telescope in a single year is 7.4 to 1. so the demand from astronomers is still literally Sky High so it probably comes as no surprise to hear that NASA recently extended Hubble science Mission until 2026. that's all well and good astronomers still want to use Hubble to do our science but there's also a bit of a ticking Time Bomb when it comes to the Hubble Space Telescope and that is its orbit around the Earth which is slowly degrading over time it's dropping in altitude making its orbit sort of trace this long extended spiral until one day Hubble will fall fell hobble is in what's known as a low earth orbit with an altitude on average at the minute of around about 535 kilometers that puts it in what's known as the thermosphere a layer of the Earth's atmosphere which is incredibly underdense it's practically a vacuum in terms of like the number of particles that you have in a given volume but that does increase whenever you have a solar storm so when the sun burps up these high energy particles that cause the beautiful Aurora or Northern Lights here on Earth but it's not all beautiful light shows because those particles can also impact with spacecraft like the International Space Station or the Hubble Space Telescope in its low earth orbit and essentially cause a drag Force as they hit into the spacecraft causing it to drop in altitude so it really does depend on how active the Sun is going to be in the next couple of years as we're actually approaching solar maximum in terms of how long the Hubble face telescope has left before its orbit spirals it back down to earth the best estimates put it around about the mid-2030s now it was never NASA and esa's plan to let the Hubble Space Telescope burn up through the atmosphere not least because they want to bring it back down safely and put it in a museum like the Smithsonian you know to preserve it as part of human history but also because the mirror on board the telescope is 2.4 meters wide that's very unlikely to actually burn up completely in the atmosphere and so if that were to hit a very densely populated area it could cause a serious amount of damage the original plan when it was launched back in 1990 was to bring the Hubble Space Telescope back to Earth with the space shuttle when it reached the end of its Mission and up until that time the space shuttle was also used to give the Hubble Space Telescope boosts in its orbit to combat that atmospheric drag that was causing that orbital decay of course the space shuttle was retired in 2011. the Hubble Space tells scope outlived the space shuttle its last visit from a space shuttle was the final flight of Atlantis in 2009 as part of sts-125 during that mission they fitted two new instruments on board the telescopes the things that actually record the light one of which I've since used in my own research on how supermassive black holes grow in galaxies that have been left alone and they replaced all six gyroscopes on board the Hubble Space Telescope which allow it to know whether it's pointing in the right direction and at the right object people often think that it's fuel that we use to point the Hubble Space Telescope you know you sort of like burn it in One Direction that'll push it in the other direction but actually that would be completely unstable and wouldn't allow you to point as accurately as you need to so instead the whole Space Telescope has got solar panels which it uses to generate electricity and then uses that power to tip and tilt the spinning Reaction Wheel on board in the opposite direction it needs to go the gyroscopes can then be used to track and maintain that position of the telescope point and fixed at a certain object essentially by pushing back on the rotation of the telescope this is also similar to how Jade with t points at certain objects however jdbo's T's Mission lifetime is limited by the amount of fuel it has because it needs fuel to keep it in orbit around the Grange Point too and when that runs out it's very likely that it's going to have a very fiery death in the song but back to hst's gyroscopes because three of the six that were installed back in 2009 were of an older design one that was tried and tested we knew it worked but we also knew that they had a much shorter lifetime those have since failed they're no longer working anymore the other three were of a newer design that wasn't sold tried and tested yet thankfully those are still going and keeping the telescope going as well with a little bit of jiggling and shaking of the telescope and some tearing them on and turning them back off again but when they failed in 2018. hello IG have you tried turning it off and on again but it could be that those fail in the next couple of years before we even have to worry about hst's orbit decaying and bringing it back down to earth and that ending the science Mission early but assuming they do continue to work and assuming that we still want to continue doing science with the Hubble Space Telescope especially in parallel with jwst while we have that up there as part of its 15 20-year Mission so that we can cover a much more useful and productive wavelength range you know running from the ultraviolet and the optical and into the infrared then we need a way to give the telescope a boost in altitude to combat this orbital Decay now back on sts-125 that last space shuttle service mission of the Hubble Space Telescope the astronauts installed what is essentially a Fail-Safe device called the soft capture mechanism which is a ring-like shape attached to Hubble's aft bulkhead which could allow for the safe capture of the Hubble Space Telescope by any spacecraft you know it's like a universal docking system just giving other spacecraft something to grab onto without damaging the telescope itself [Music] but here in lies the problem because NASA don't currently have any spacecraft that they could use to do that thanks to the commercialization of the space industry so in September 2022 NASA signed an agreement with SpaceX to complete a study about whether it would be possible for spacex's Dragon spacecraft to dock with the Hubble Space Telescope and move it to a higher orbit now dragon has successfully taken both cargo and cruise of astronauts to the International Space Station so it's a tried and tested spacecraft there just needs to be a feasibility study first you know analyzing data on the flights of the Dragon spacecraft and also of the whole space telescopes orbit Plus in December 2022 NASA put out a request for information essentially asking for other space exploration companies to conduct a feasibility study of their own for docking with them boosting the orbit of the Hubble Space telescope question is can they do it I mean it sounds simple enough to me she says as an astrophysicist and not an engineer so we're just gonna have to wait for the outcome of these feasibility studies so that us astronomers have some idea on how long we can expect the Hubble Space Telescope to be around four because ideally we'd like to have it for as long as possible because the next generation of ultraviolet and Optical space telescopes we're going to be waiting a while for like the Nancy Grace Roman telescope which covers from Blue Light to the infrared that isn't set to launch until 2026 2027. let's be honest these things always get pushed back a little bit and then you've also got luvoir as well which will cover the ultraviolet the optical and just a little bit into the infrared that's not set to launch until 2039. I feel like setting the launch date of 2039 is like the retail equivalent of setting the price of something of 9 9.99 like it's not 10 pounds it's 9 pounds 99 right we all know it's probably going to be more like the 2040s and not 2039 that that thing launches so if we want to make sure that that wavelength gap of ultraviolet to the optical has some coverage with space telescopes especially during jwst's lifetime that we're going to need a commercial space company to help save the Hubble Space Telescope so as much as astronomers really don't like SpaceX and all these other companies that are launching these big satellite constellations at the minute for all the damage they're doing to ground-based observatories turns out we might just need them to save our favorite toy of astronomers the Hubble Space Telescope proposed for to use Hubble to do their science compared to the physical the physical increase whenever there's a solar storm piece of fluff hahaha reactions of I don't know what is it when you have really good reactions like oh another one oh oh I missed it that time okay my reactions aren't actually that good anyway it could cause some serious damage if it was to hit an inhabited area inhabited a habited area inhabit you inhabit it inhabited yes populated areas let's just say that

Channel: Dr. Becky

Views: 196,102

Keywords: dr becky, astrophysics, physics, space, universe, scientist, astronomer, james webb space telescope, hubble space telescope, cosmology, NASA, ESA, becky smethurst, infrared, unfoldtheuniverse, cosmos, spacex, JWST, dragon, crew dragon, ISS, international space station, low earth orbit, troposphere, atmophere, sun, coronal mass ejection, atmospheric drag, space shuttle, STS-125, SM4, HST, hubble, space telescope, WFC3, atlantis

Id: UraYUQH_z68

Length: 10min 37sec (637 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 09 2023