Just happened! NASA just officially announced to boost Hubble's orbit with SpaceX's Dragon...

Just happened! NASA just officially announced to boost Hubble's orbit with SpaceX's Dragon... <br>Huge thanks to: <br>William Harwood: https://twitter.com/cbs_spacenews <br>Tony Bela - Infographic news: https://twitter.com/InfographicTony <br>====== <br>Referring to Hubble Space Telescope, people will definitely remember a workhorse cosmic observatory for astronomers around the world since its launch in 1990. It has been dazzling with dramatic stellar imagery and enabled important discoveries such as the age of the universe and the moons of Pluto. <br>NASA believes that Hubble remains highly productive until at least the late 2020s or 2030s. However, many components of the telescope have spent decades in the unforgiving environment of space, raising unsurprising concerns about their longevity. <br>More importantly, the inexorable march of time, gravity, and Earth’s atmosphere means that Hubble is guaranteed to eventually reenter that atmosphere and burn up without intervention. <br>That terrible demise could come as early as the mid-2030s. <br>However, the story is about to change, as NASA &amp; SpaceX just officially announced a plan to boost Hubble Telescope’s orbit with Dragon... <br>So, how will this happen? Is this really feasible? <br>Let’s find out everything about this in today’s episode of Alpha Tech: <br> <br>NASA and SpaceX have recently signed a Space Act Agreement to conduct a six-month study to determine the practicability of Dragon docking with the 32-year-old telescope and boosting it into a higher orbit. The study is not exclusive, meaning that other companies can propose similar concepts with alternative rockets and spacecraft. <br> <br>NASA and SpaceX will spend the next six or so months discussing whether it’s possible to use Dragon to boost the telescope’s orbit back to a nominal 600 kilometers (~372 mi). <br>Both parties say that the agreement will also investigate the possibility of Dragon servicing missions, which could be even more significant for Hubble. While a boost that large would likely keep it in orbit for decades to come, there’s no guarantee the telescope would remain functional to take full advantage of the extra time it would have. <br> <br>During the fifth and final Space Shuttle servicing mission, NASA astronauts installed a docking adapter (Soft Capture Mechanism) on the Hubble Telescope. Although no concrete plans existed for any additional servicing missions, the forward-facing installation of that adapter has made this feasibility study possible. <br> <br>In theory, that docking adapter could make boosting Hubble’s orbit far more feasible, safe, and affordable than a Shuttle-style crewed servicing mission. SpaceX’s Cargo Dragon 2 spacecraft has the same autonomous docking capabilities its crewed sibling has and costs less to launch and operate, so it’s not inconceivable that an uncrewed Dragon could autonomously dock with Hubble and boost its orbit. <br>Jessica Jensen, SpaceX’s Vice President of Customer Operations and Integration, says that an uncrewed option will be studied alongside crewed servicing and orbit-boost alternatives. <br>Just happened! NASA just officially announced to boost Hubble's orbit with SpaceX's Dragon...