HST Service Mission.

NASA has issued a request for proposals (RFP) from industry and academia for a robotic service mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. The request represents a turnaround on NASA’s part following an outcry over the agency’s cancellation of a planned space shuttle visit to the HST in 2005 (see Physics Today, March 2004, page 29 ). “For the last few months, some of the best and brightest engineers at NASA, within industry, and [in] academia have been tirelessly evaluating the options for servicing Hubble by autonomous, robotic means,” NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe said at a meeting last month of the American Astronomical Society in Denver, Colorado.

The RFP calls for safely deorbiting the HST so that it is destroyed on reentry into Earth’s atmosphere, extending the HST ’s service life by adding batteries and new gyroscopes, and installing new scientific instruments. “We are on a tight schedule to assure a Hubble servicing mission toward the end of calendar year 2007. But we must act promptly to fully explore this approach,” O’Keefe said. At least 12 groups are considering submitting proposals by the 16 July deadline. The HST is likely to die by 2008 if its gyroscopes and batteries are not replaced.