John Doe wrote:
Consider one of the early satellite servicing missions where the
satellite wasn't stable to be grabbed by the arm and it was an EVA
astronaut who went to grab it.

Since sending a Progress to Hubble would be a last resort to try to save
a shuttle, I would think that NASA would give astronauts more leaway in
terms of what they can and cannot do. AKA: forget the "book", let them
do what needs to be done as long as ir is reasonable.

But again, this is just a one-off mission.
After this, all the future Shuttle flights will go to the ISS - so you
don't need a immediate rescue option unless something goes very wrong
indeed during ascent and it can't even make it to the station.
Also, the timeline is getting pretty short to be making any big rescue
plans now; something like this would need several months to work out,
particularly if it involved the Russians.
The really nasty scenario is if something goes wrong with Atlantis that
traps it in orbit, and it's suspected that the same thing may happen to
Endeavour if it is launched to rescue the Atlantis crew.



BTW, I haven't kept up with Hubble. What are the current plans for
deorbit ? Have they actually installed a de-orbit engine to it ?


Hubble isn't scheduled to deorbit naturally (after this mission's orbit
boost) till around 2030, so they decided to just put off dealing with
the problem for a while.
If Orion ever gets into operation, it could attach a deorbit motor to it
or modify its orbit into one that would hit a designated place by the
use of its service module engine, then detach and use the engine again
to climb back into a orbit from which it would return from at the end
of the mission.
Alternately, it could be destroyed (broken up into small pieces that
would burn up on reentry) by a Navy ASAT missile, which is probably the
cheapest and simplest way of dealing with it, particularly if it starts
to tumble after all of its gyros fail somewhere down the line.

Pat