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NASA and SpaceX jointly worked on a feasibility study to see what might be possible for Hubble. The telescope has been in orbit since 1990 and was last repaired 15 years ago, by astronauts who went up in NASA’s space shuttles, which are now museum exhibits. NASA officials stressed that Hubble’s instruments are healthy and the telescope remains incredibly productive., project manager for the Hubble Space Telescope at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “We do think it's a very capable observatory and poised to do exciting things.”
Now, though, to avoid having to use the sketchy gyro, NASA says Hubble will shift into a one-gyroscope mode of operation, a contingency“After completing a series of tests and carefully considering our options, we have made the decision that we will transition Hubble to operate using only one of its three remaining gyros,” Clampin said. “Operationally, we believe this is our best approach to support Hubble science through this decade and into the next.
But Clampin said that “most of the observations it takes will be completely unaffected by this change.”