When it comes to photography of the cosmos, the Hubble Space Telescope is one of the best to ever do it: a true astronomical Ansel Adams. Just look at the astonishing body of work it has produced since its launch into low-Earth orbit in 1990. While Hubble is up there taking stunning close-ups of our planetary neighbors or gigantic nebulae light years away, photographers under 36 on Earth are sliding into the DMs of Instagram models they “would love to collaborate with.” It is Hubble’s incomparable body of work that makes its current fate even more troubling. It is slowly but steadily losing altitude as it orbits our planet and is expected to re-enter the atmosphere, falling from the skies in a fiery blaze, sometime in the early to mid-2030s – an ignominious demise and too soon for one of the most important achievements in the history of science. Since gravity has a tendency to pull smaller masses toward larger ones, Hubble’s expected downward drift is a problem that NASA has been trying to mitigate since even before the observatory launched. They even got the space shuttle Columbia to return it to orbit for a bit during a servicing mission in 2002. While that may have given Hubble a few more years, it was just anticipating the inevitable. And with the Space Shuttle fleet now grounded and spending its retirement years in various museums, NASA has been forced to look to the private sector for ideas for the Hubble rescue operation. Without any spacecraft of its own to handle the task, the federal agency issued a Request for Information (RFI) on October 29 to see if anyone in the growing commercial space industry could offer a proposal on how to increase Hubble’s altitude and/or maintain it. If not, NASA would also be open to exploring ways to execute a controlled removal of the satellite. Interested parties will need to share details about their company’s current or future capabilities to safely capture and elevate Hubble to an altitude of 373 miles (600 km) or higher and give the scope a tune-up to improve performance or simply guide it on a controlled re-entry to Earth. Applicants for this mission, which would take place in 2032, must plan the mission themselves, provide and launch their own spacecraft, and recruit the human crew needed for the job (if applicable). No matter the approach taken, Hubble should not suffer any damage. “Hubble still has important science ahead of it and we should pursue every reasonable opportunity to keep it running for as long as possible,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said in a post on the agency’s website. “If there are innovative and cost-effective ways to extend the life of an asset already in orbit, we owe it to the American taxpayer and the scientific community to explore them. Surely, it would be great if the oligarchs currently clogging the skies with private satellites and plotting ways to colonize the universe could take a moment to help the institutional giant on whose shoulders they stand. But with NASA looking for “cost-effective” solutions to cope with its shrinking budget while the Pentagon appears to have a With the Space Force’s endless supply of multimillion-dollar contracts going to their capitalist friends, those best equipped to help Hubble may need some convincing. Anyone looking to lend a hand (or a vehicle) to NASA must submit their proposals by the November 30 deadline.
