5 ms·

If they found nothing in the first 5-10 images, what do you imagine they would do? Telescope scheduling is a very tricky business, not one that lets you change

• MiroF 6y ago
  Schedule the 5-10 mins, then schedule again for later.
  • barkingcat 6y ago
    The amount of programming and orbital changes needed for this is not feasible. For the hubble to point at something, I'd imagine it needed to station-keep and burn some hydrazine. If you did infinite numbers of 5-10 min studies, you'd burn right out of the fuel store of a spacecraft before you'd get anything done. From what I hear, hubble telescope times are scoped out, planned out a year or several years in advance - the telescopes and scientific instruments need to be programmed, the spacecraft needed to be moved/pivoted to aim at the right part of space, communications times needs to be booked with receivers/ground stations across the entire Deep Space Network so you can receive the data. It's nontrivial - if you booked 5-10 min at a time you'd have wasted your most precious resource. https://eyes.nasa.gov/dsn/dsn.html https://eyes.nasa.gov/dsn/dsn.html
    • akarpenko 6y ago
      The Hubble telescope is not a deep space probe being so close to earth and doesn't use the Deep Space Network to communicate.
    • vlasev 6y ago
      Hubble points via gyroscopes, not thrusters! But they are slow, so that's part of why you need to schedule things well. YouTube video explaining how it points: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEZI9DxIQss https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEZI9DxIQss Also, I don't think it needs to change orbital parameters at all for its operation. Station-keeping yea, but I don't think it needs to burn more fuel because of pointing at things.