spacetoday.net: NASA cancels last Hubble servicing mission

Posted: Sat, Jan 17, 2004, 11:03 AM ET (1603 GMT)
Hubble Space Telescope (NASA)

Citing safety concerns, NASA announced Friday that it would cancel the last scheduled shuttle mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope, a decision that could mean an early end to the telescope's mission. NASA decided to cancel the SM4 servicing mission, scheduled for 2006, because it would have required the agency to develop specialized techniques for looking for and repairing any damage to the orbiter. All other shuttle missions planned until its scheduled retirement in 2010 will go the International Space Station, which offers a "safe haven" as well as a platform for inspections and repairs not available on missions to Hubble. The decision means that the telescope could fall into disrepair in the next several years. The telescope currently has only four of six working gyros, with three required to properly operate the spacecraft. There is a 50-50 chance that the telescope will lose two working gyros by 2007, although engineers are working on new software that would allow the telescope to operate on two gyros and still perform most of its scientific objectives. The replacement for Hubble, the James Webb Space Telescope, is not scheduled for launch until early next decade, opening the possibility of several years without a large space telescope in orbit. That concerns many astronomers, who asked NASA last year to fly SM4 and perhaps another servicing mission to keep the telescope operating into next decade. Left unresolved is the fate of instruments built for Hubble that would have been installed on the SM4 mission.