4 ms·
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
by 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 agoThe 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 agoHubble 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.