4 ms·

Idle speculation, but I wonder if the distance will impair service, repair and upgrades, all of which I believe Hubble has benefited from

Aeolos 10y ago
It makes servicing impossible. The telescope will eventually run out of fuel and stop working. Still, the quality of the images it expected to be so much better than Hubble that the limited lifespan will be a worthwhile trade-off.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
XorNot 10y ago
Yes. No human has ever been out that far into space. Though I suspect by the time it launches it is conceivable SpaceX and NASA could actually put a mission together to do that since at SpaceX prices repairs might be cost effective.
- nitrogen 10y ago
  On that note, is it possible for the mission operators to put the telescope in earth orbit first, make sure everything is working, then repair if needed before sending it out to L2?
  - lmm 10y ago
    No. It would be too warm to take good observations. And the mirror unfolds in sections, and isn't AFAIK equipped to fold back down again for the journey to L2. And repairing in LEO would still be tremendously expensive in any case.
brianpgordon 10y ago
Unmanned satellites aren't generally serviced, even ones in low Earth orbit. The Hubble is an extremely rare exception.
InclinedPlane 10y ago
Yup, it's a one shot deal, mostly. That said, as the parent post mentioned, the cost of all those servicing missions was very high. It actually would have been cheaper, overall, to just launch a new one, or several. However, because of the weirdness of the Shuttle program, most of the actual cost of the Shuttle missions to service the Hubble weren't charged against Hubble's budget (substantially because the Shuttle program was looking for reasons it was useful). At nearly the full cost of building the Hubble itself per servicing mission (about $1.2 billion plus extras per flight) it really didn't make any financial sense. And now that the Shuttle program is over, it wouldn't be a factor anyway. Putting the JWST in low Earth orbit wouldn't make it any easier to be serviced, since there are no vehicles capable of servicing. But it would make it impossible for it to do it's primary mission. Moreover, we've gotten a lot better at building spacecraft and space telescopes since Hubble was constructed, most likely JWST will do just fine.

Aeolos 10y ago

It makes servicing impossible. The telescope will eventually run out of fuel and stop working. Still, the quality of the images it expected to be so much better than Hubble that the limited lifespan will be a worthwhile trade-off.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

XorNot 10y ago

Yes. No human has ever been out that far into space. Though I suspect by the time it launches it is conceivable SpaceX and NASA could actually put a mission together to do that since at SpaceX prices repairs might be cost effective.

nitrogen 10y ago
On that note, is it possible for the mission operators to put the telescope in earth orbit first, make sure everything is working, then repair if needed before sending it out to L2?
- lmm 10y ago
  No. It would be too warm to take good observations. And the mirror unfolds in sections, and isn't AFAIK equipped to fold back down again for the journey to L2. And repairing in LEO would still be tremendously expensive in any case.

brianpgordon 10y ago

Unmanned satellites aren't generally serviced, even ones in low Earth orbit. The Hubble is an extremely rare exception.

InclinedPlane 10y ago

Yup, it's a one shot deal, mostly. That said, as the parent post mentioned, the cost of all those servicing missions was very high. It actually would have been cheaper, overall, to just launch a new one, or several. However, because of the weirdness of the Shuttle program, most of the actual cost of the Shuttle missions to service the Hubble weren't charged against Hubble's budget (substantially because the Shuttle program was looking for reasons it was useful). At nearly the full cost of building the Hubble itself per servicing mission (about $1.2 billion plus extras per flight) it really didn't make any financial sense. And now that the Shuttle program is over, it wouldn't be a factor anyway. Putting the JWST in low Earth orbit wouldn't make it any easier to be serviced, since there are no vehicles capable of servicing. But it would make it impossible for it to do it's primary mission. Moreover, we've gotten a lot better at building spacecraft and space telescopes since Hubble was constructed, most likely JWST will do just fine.