Hubble Repair Mission in Jepardy Due to Satellite Collision Debris

By Nancy Atkinson - February 18, 2009 at 11:34 AM UTC | Missions
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[/caption] The Hubble Space Telescope repair mission, STS-125 seemingly gets bad news after more bad news. The mission was already delayed due Hurricane Ike in 2008, and again when a data handling processor on the spacecraft failed. Now, the mission may be too risky for both spacecraft and astronauts following the

collision of the Iridium satellite and a defunct Russian communications spacecraft last week.

There may be too much debris floating around close to Hubble's orbit, breaching the safety limits NASA has in place. Without a servicing mission by a space shuttle crew, currently targeted for launch in May, the telescope is not expected to last more than another year or two.

Astronauts on spacewalks are even more at risk than the shuttle or even Hubble, and there are five spacewalks planned during the Hubble servicing flight to replace the telescope's batteries, install new science instruments (including a new camera) and re-apply radiation shielding.

Hubble orbits higher than the International Space Station, closer to the cloud of debris from the collision. Even before the collision, the probabilities of a debris strike for the Hubble mission were already close to NASA's safety limit. NASA pegged the chance of a catastrophic impact to a shuttle in Hubble's orbit at 1 in 185, just below its limit of 1 in 200.

Other debris in that orbit includes pieces of a satellite that China blew up in 2007 as part of a missile test, adding hundreds of pieces of potentially hazardous debris.

Mark Matney, an orbital-debris specialist at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, told Nature magazine that even before last week's crash the risk of a debris impact for the shuttle already "uncomfortably close to unacceptable levels. This is only going to add on to that."

A decision about whether to proceed with the Hubble repair mission could be made in the next week or two, Nature reports.

Sources: Discovery News,

Nature

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com