NASA Might Be Able to Reboost the Hubble Space Telescope After All... [10:37]

YouTube transcript reformatted at textformatter.ai follows.

Reflecting on thirty years of Hubble. Annnnd, /rimshot

Transcript
Let's talk about the future of the Hubble Space Telescope. And I want to go back in time to my interview with Jared before he went on his Polaris Dawn mission. This was in June of 2024. He, at the time, offered to help reboost the Hubble, and NASA wasn't really budging on it. This is what he had to say. Uh, you offered NASA help to save Hubble, which is kind of in crisis right now. They seem reluctant to accept that help. What are your thoughts on this?

Yeah, I um, I am still hopeful that, uh, the um, you know, that this will get to the right place. Uh, so, you know, I'm trying to, you know, let it take a, you know, its natural course and maybe we'll arrive at a logical place. Um, you know, Hubble's coming home. Uh, it's coming home faster than I believe is, you know, being represented. Uh, I mean, the higher solar cycle is going to bring it back. So then the question is, what are you going to do about it? Are you going to let it reenter on its own or are you going to boost it? And if you're going to boost it, do you want it to be a free mission or do you want to pay like half a billion dollars to do it? And, um, along the way, you know, could you make it better and is it good for commercial space? Um, you know, and, and, and I think NASA values commercial space. They created this. Like, I wouldn't have gone to space on Inspiration 4. There'd be no Polaris program if it wasn't for NASA's great foresight, you know, with the commercial crew program. So, I think they're going to wind up at the right decision. Um, it might just take them a little bit longer to, uh, to get there. But I think most important is, um, you know, there is a risk trade here. Um, and you know, I think people have pointed out for sure that there is a value to, you know, we don't want to risk ongoing value to science. Um, I felt that, you know, Hubble's true health was never, you know, accurately portrayed and I think that's become a little bit more clear now. Uh, it's down to one gyro. I think it can observe 25% of the available sky and I think it takes down like 16% of, um, uh, viewing time available for science. So, like, I, I, I imagine as it gets lower and closer to demise and the usability, you know, its science usability diminishes, it should become more obvious that, um, you know, what the right thing to do is.

So fast forward, here we are in March of 2026. Jared is at the helm of NASA and likely still cares about Hubble along with many others in the space community. During a press conference, a reporter asked about what's happening with Hubble. And I learned some new details that I wasn't aware of. So, I wanted to share them with you because it appears that maybe Hubble will be saved or have its life extended after all.

Good evening, Marcia Dun. Um, I'm wondering what's the fate of the Hubble Space Telescope as it approaches its 36th launch anniversary.

So I'll start with Hubble. Hubble is very well, uh, taking amazing images. In fact, the image we revealed today from James Webb has a sister image from Hubble, and so I encourage you to look at that when they get released tomorrow. Um, one, I know the sort of crux of the question is will it re-enter? Uh, clearly the sun has been very active. Um, the whole, uh, environment has changed and the drag on the spacecraft has actually increased. What we're doing is we're starting with, um, a wonderful tech demo that we're doing with our commercial partners at Catalyst, um, to actually try and grab and reboost, um, the, um, why can't I think of the name of the spacecraft? That's terrible. Swift, thank you, thank you, Dr. Um, just blanked out, um, uh, the Swift spacecraft, um, and to actually, which is a great, it'll be a great capability to actually be able to grab and maneuver something in orbit. So it's a really, really excellent tech demo that we're doing, looking at launching that, um, in the summer to go and try to do a reboost with Swift, and then, uh, if that is successful, we will look at what it would take to be able to actually reboost Hubble. As it stands, the Hubble Space Telescope is currently expected to remain scientifically operational into the next decade with NASA recently transitioning it to a one gyroscope mode to extend its lifespan following some hardware failures. However, Hubble faces an inevitable end between 2028 and 2040 due to orbital decay caused by atmospheric drag. So, without a reboost mission to raise its altitude, Hubble will eventually perform an uncontrolled re-entry and most likely crash into the South Pacific Ocean. But my ears perked up yesterday because we heard about another rescue mission that's coming up. And if it succeeds, Hubble might have more of a future after all. According to reporting from RS Technica and journalist Steven Clark, NASA is about to attempt something that could have major implications for the future of satellite servicing. And it all starts with trying to save a satellite that's falling out of orbit. That's NASA's Swift Observatory. It's been in orbit since 2004, studying gamma-ray bursts, some of the most powerful explosions in the universe. Even after more than two decades, scientists still rely on it because there's no other US satellite that can fully replace what it does. The problem, though, is that Swift orbits relatively low to Earth and over time atmospheric drag is slowly pulling it down. Because solar activity has been high recently, Earth's atmosphere has expanded slightly, increasing drag and causing Swift's orbit to decay even faster than expected. Engineers now believe the satellite could reenter Earth's atmosphere sometime between late summer and fall of this year if nothing is done. So instead of sending astronauts like NASA did with Hubble in the space shuttle era, NASA was awarded a $30 million contract to a small company called Catalyst Space Technologies to attempt a robotic rescue mission. The plan is to launch a spacecraft called Link, and Link will rendezvous with Swift in orbit, grab the satellite using robotic arms, boost it to a higher orbit, and extend its life. Now, if this works, it would be one of the first commercial satellite rescue missions ever attempted on a spacecraft that was never designed to be serviced. But I should caution you, the mission is extremely ambitious. Swift was never designed to be docked with. Catalyst has never docked with another satellite before. They only had about nine months to build the spacecraft and they must launch by June or Swift might be too low to even reach. So, good luck to Catalyst because they're essentially building the spacecraft, testing it, and preparing for launch all at the same time, which is pretty unusual for space missions. But NASA has wanted this ability to service and reboost satellites robotically for years. If this mission succeeds, it would prove that commercial companies can dock with old satellites, repair them, refuel them, reboost them back into higher orbits, and that brings us back to Hubble. Interesting to note as well, instead of choosing a rocket like Falcon 9 to launch this rescue mission, Catalyst selected the air-launched Pegasus XL, a rocket that hasn't even flown since 2021. But as Steven Clark with RS Technica points out, there is a pretty good reason for this, which Pegasus has flown 45 times since 1990. But Swift flies closer to the equator, swinging between 20° north and south latitude on each orbit to minimize time flying over the South Atlantic anomaly, a weak spot in Earth's magnetic field where satellites are exposed to higher doses of damaging radiation. For Swift, this exposure could contaminate scientific observations.

So, as Steven Clark points out, the Pegasus system has the advantage of being mobile. The rocket and its airborne launch platform will be assembled together in California, then flown to Quadrilen Atoll in the Marshall Islands where SpaceX actually got their start. This is about 600 miles north of the equator. And there, the airplane will release Pegasus to begin its climb into space. So I, for one, really hope this works out and really hope that Hubble can have more of a future. I think a lot of us do. And so I just thought it was interesting because when I was sitting in that press conference yesterday, I remembered asking Jared that question. And clearly it's something that NASA is still at least trying to, you know, figure out a solution for. So let's hope that the Swift rescue mission works out.

And thanks so much for watching this video. So the other day I went to the movies and my eyes lasered in on my logo for my t-shirt designs. Someone was wearing one of my Mechazilla shirts out in the wild. It was really cool to see a fan here in Austin, and so I decided to launch a new design, uh, because that shirt did so well. Some of you guys loved it. So hopefully you guys like this new design which is getting ready for the dual catch era that we are about to enter for Starship. So I've been fortunate enough to see a booster catch more than once, and it is quite a spectacular sight. But of course, the goal is not just to catch the booster. It's also to catch the ship. So check out this shirt. It says Starbase Texas flight 134 and 15 dual catch imminent. So we are entering the next phase of Starship, of course, with the V3 launch of flight 12 pretty soon. The debut of a new pad, uh, next generation of Starship. And I'm glad that my, uh, t-shirt guy, Scott Carr, sent me a double XL because, you know, I'm only getting bigger every day. The other thing that I thought I would share with you is this little six-month-old version that he made for me to have my son wear when the time is right. So, if you want to support my channel and my growing family and have a new design fresh for 2026, then check out the link in the description of this video. Thank you so much for supporting Ellie and Space, and I'll see you in the next video.

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Hubble may survive, but I’m not sure my eyes will, after reading that tiny font, here.

Hubble needs some work done it as well, yes. Gyroscope replacements I recall.

“”Telescope is currently expected to remain scientifically operational into the next decade with NASA recently transitioning it to a one gyroscope mode to extend its lifespan following some hardware failures.””

“Some hardware failures”?

“transition to one gyro”?

The Hubble Space Telescope should have SIX functional gyros. Today, it only has two. They chose to only use one at a time because losing both at once is total failure.

For everything space, including Hubble, visit Behind The Black. Real science, no spin.

https://behindtheblack.com/

https://behindtheblack.com/?s=Hubble

It’s a great idea to prove proof of concept. If it works, that’s great. If not, we haven’t lost anything we weren’t already going to lose.
Maybe if it gets boosted, we can try remote repairs via robots. Buy Hubble some more time.
Hubble has given us some remarkable images and info. But in the end, its pretty dated and now limited.

Maybe design a bigger, better Webb...

One of my sons is an astronautical engineer. When he was in college he had a job at NASA on a solar observatory mission. As I understand, it launched the week he was born for a two year mission. A gyro failed and they lost contact with it at some point. Years later, they regained contact and went live again. It’s kind of cool how they kept trying for so long and regained control of what is essentially obsolete equipment floating in space over 1 million miles away.

29 years after it was launched it’s still active and send photos back of sunspot activity.