remaining gyroscopesfor a Hubble maintenance mission — the last one took place in 2009, before the end of the Space Shuttle program — NASA has now turned him down.
"After exploring the current commercial capabilities, we are not going to pursue a reboost right now," said NASA astrophysics director Mark Clampin, as. While NASA "greatly appreciates" their efforts, "our assessment also raised a number of considerations, including potential risks such as premature loss of science and some technology challenges.
For one, it doesn't have an airlock or a robotic arm, which could make repairing the Hubble difficult. Instead, NASA is looking for ways to eke out just over another decade of life out of the Hubble, without a SpaceX-enabled visit. "We updated reliability assessments for the gyros... and we still come to the conclusion that greater than 70 percent probability of operating at least one gyro through 2035," Hubble project manager Patrick Crouse told reporters on Tuesday.