NASA Seeks Commercial Partners to Save Hubble Space Telescope

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is asking commercial aerospace companies for proposals to boost the Hubble Space Telescope into a higher orbit and prevent an uncontrolled descent into Earth.

The agency issued a request for information on October 29 for in-space servicing capabilities after recent analysis revealed a 10 percent probability of reentry by September 2032 and a 50 percent probability by December 2033.

Launched in April 1990, the telescope has operated for more than 35 years and fundamentally changed human understanding of the cosmos by helping calculate the universe's age and discovering dark energy.

“Hubble still has important science ahead of it, and we should be looking at every reasonable opportunity to keep it delivering for as long as possible,” said Jared Isaacman, the NASA administrator.

The observatory has outlasted the Space Shuttle program that previously serviced it, leaving officials to rely on private industry to potentially rescue the spacecraft from atmospheric drag.

“Commercial industry has rapidly evolved in recent years to offer new capabilities for in-space satellite capture and servicing,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters.

The new initiative follows a separate effort earlier this year involving the smaller Swift Observatory, which faced a failed rescue attempt and is now falling back to Earth.

While Swift is expected to re-enter the atmosphere on Wednesday, NASA officials stated that the risk of harm to anyone on Earth from that spacecraft is approximately 1 in 2100.

Astronomers expressed concern over the growing number of defunct satellites re-entering the atmosphere, warning that the debris could alter atmospheric chemistry.

NASA intends to evaluate commercial proposals to determine whether a viable, cost-effective mission can be mounted to preserve the Hubble observatory before orbital decay becomes irreversible.