NASA to go ahead with robotic Hubble repair
Posted: Tue, Aug 10, 2004, 10:43 AM ET (1443 GMT)
NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe announced Monday that the agency would move ahead with plans to carry out a robotic repair mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. O'Keefe, speaking to staff at the Goddard Space Flight Center, said that he has instructed the agency to put together a repair mission using ideas taken from a number of proposals submitted to NASA earlier this year. The robotic mission would be charged with providing new gyros and batteries for the aging telescope, as well as potentially replacing two scientific instruments. The mission may take three years to develop and is expected to coast at least $1 billion, and perhaps up to $1.6 billion. A amendment to the proposed 2005 NASA budget will be sent to Congress in the near future that will request funding to start the work. The decision is somewhat at odds with an interim report released last month by the National Academies, which concluded that a repair mission was worthwhile but the state of the art in robotics was not sophisticated enough to carry out a repair mission. That report advocated keeping open the option of restoring the shuttle servicing mission that NASA canceled earlier this year, although NASA had been adamant that a shuttle mission to Hubble would not be safe enough.
NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe announced Monday that the agency would move ahead with plans to carry out a robotic repair mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. O'Keefe, speaking to staff at the Goddard Space Flight Center, said that he has instructed the agency to put together a repair mission using ideas taken from a number of proposals submitted to NASA earlier this year. The robotic mission would be charged with providing new gyros and batteries for the aging telescope, as well as potentially replacing two scientific instruments. The mission may take three years to develop and is expected to coast at least $1 billion, and perhaps up to $1.6 billion. A amendment to the proposed 2005 NASA budget will be sent to Congress in the near future that will request funding to start the work. The decision is somewhat at odds with an interim report released last month by the National Academies, which concluded that a repair mission was worthwhile but the state of the art in robotics was not sophisticated enough to carry out a repair mission. That report advocated keeping open the option of restoring the shuttle servicing mission that NASA canceled earlier this year, although NASA had been adamant that a shuttle mission to Hubble would not be safe enough.
Related Links:
| <<previous article | next article>> |
|
news in brief
|
|
|
|
news links
|
|
Friday, March 27
A leap forward for Lumio: Phase C officially launched
ESA — 6:09 am ET (1009 GMT) Cantor Fitzgerald cuts Firefly Aerospace stock price target on estimates
Investing.com — 6:08 am ET (1008 GMT) SpaceX President: Starlink Could Plateau at 15,000 or 20,000 Satellites
PC Magazine — 6:07 am ET (1007 GMT) Data Centers on Orbit Could Boost Space Operations, Experts Say
National Defense Magazine — 6:06 am ET (1006 GMT) National Defense Strategy ‘falls short’ on nuclear, space threat: SASC chair
Defense One — 6:05 am ET (1005 GMT) |
