Hubble Question...

"Bruce Kille" wrote in news:xx9Tb.14283$Vg3.1349
@bignews5.bellsouth.net:

With or without any future service the Hubble will some day go offline.
There have been a lot of ideas floating around as to what to do then.
I was wondering if it could be possible to boost it to a LaGrange Point,
rather than de-orbit it? Is an earth-moon point stable?

In theory, the L4/L5 points are stable, but in the Earth/moon system, all
five points are unstable due to the eccentricity of the moon's orbit and
the influence of the sun.

I know the
earth-sun point can be used as the SOHO satellite is there, but it
would require a lot more fuel to reach.

Not *a lot* more - both require a delta-V near escape velocity, or around 3
km/s.

The problem with putting HST outside low Earth orbit is that its pointing
system relies on geomagnetic torquers to desaturate its reaction wheels.
Move HST out of the Earth's magnetic field, and you've got to find some
other way to do that. Also, HST's comm system relies on TDRS, and accessing
TDRS from well outside GEO is questionable at best.

Apparently, recovery of the
Hubble for placement in the Smithsonian is not possible, so I wanted
to put an alternative idea out for discussion.

Recovery of Hubble remains technically possible, but NASA has ground-ruled
it out for safety reasons.