Hubble Marching orders

Source: http://www.slccglobelink.com/news/20...s-857945.shtml

Hubble Decision a Blow to Goddard Engineers
By Guy Gugliotta, The Washington Post
Published: Tuesday, February 8, 2005

NASA decided to scrap plans to service the Hubble Space Telescope
without giving its engineers the chance they had been promised to
show whether a pathbreaking mission to do the job with a robot
handyman is feasible.

NASA's Mark Borkowski, program manager for the Hubble Robotic
Servicing Mission, said Tuesday that a March 21 ``preliminary design
review'' intended to present the robotic mission design will now deal
almost exclusively with plans to de-orbit Hubble so it will eventually fall
harmlessly into the sea.

The decision to deny Goddard Space Flight Center engineers a chance
to roll out their plan prompted incredulity even among those most
skeptical about the feasibility of robotic servicing. It also promises to
reignite debate over the fate of the telescope, an international icon for
most of the 15 years it has been aloft.

``They're being stopped prematurely,'' said Joseph Rothenberg, the
robotics expert from the National Academies of Science board, which
late last year deemed ``very low'' the chances of a successful robotic
servicing mission. ``The Hubble is such an important asset that NASA
should give it every chance.''

Canceling the robotic mission was the latest, and perhaps fatal, shift in
Hubble's fortunes, followed avidly by astronomy buffs as NASA decided
a year ago to scrub a space shuttle servicing mission, then adopted
robotic servicing as an alternative.

Without new financing, however, NASA's latest change of heart appears
to leave Hubble fated to die in orbit around 2008, when its gyroscopes
will wear out.

The Hubble design team is ``very let down,'' Goddard Director Edward
Weiler acknowledged in a telephone interview. ``They felt they had a
pretty good chance of pulling this robotic mission off. I share that
opinion.''

NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe announced the long-rumored demise
of robotic servicing Monday during presentation of the agency's 2006
budget request. He cited the National Academies of Science report as
the principal reason:

The academies ``view it as highly unlikely given the expense of the task
and the effort necessary as well as their view (that) even if we could do
it, we probably could not (do it) in ... time,'' O'Keefe told reporters. He
said the position has left ``an incredibly difficult hill to climb to
demonstrate the contrary.''

But several federal government sources, some of whom spoke on the
condition of anonymity because their views contrast with those of
superiors, said the main reason to derail the plan was its estimated
cost--$1 billion to $2 billion by 2007 to replace the gyros.

``There's no question that fiscal constraints are part of the problem,''
said David Goldston, chief of staff of the House Science Committee,
which held a hearing on Hubble last week. He noted that a de-orbiting
mission would cost about $500 million. It could be spread over eight or
nine years because the spacecraft would not need to arrive in time to
save the gyros, which the telescope uses to point accurately at the
targets it observes.

The sources also noted that a servicing visit by the space shuttle
--recommended by the academies--would mean an extra flight for an
orbiter fleet committed to finishing construction of the international
space station by 2010 as the first step in implementing President Bush's
initiative to explore the moon and Mars.

Controversy over Hubble arose a year ago when O'Keefe announced
that NASA was canceling a shuttle servicing mission to Hubble because
it was too risky for astronauts after the 2003 Columbia disaster.

Shuttle astronauts have serviced Hubble three times since it was put
into orbit in 1990. They added new instruments, made repairs and did
maintenance that ensured a steady stream of spectacular images and
science.

O'Keefe's announcement triggered an uproar, but he has stood by his
shuttle decision. He reaffirmed it Monday even as he prepared to leave
the agency--probably next week--to become chancellor of Louisiana
State University, in Baton Rouge.

But as 2004 progressed, enthusiasm grew within NASA for a robotic
servicing mission composed of the de-orbit module, a grappling arm to
seize the telescope during docking, a module to carry spare parts and
tools, and a Canadian-built robot known as Dextre.

NASA let a $330.6 million contract to Lockheed Martin for the de-orbit
module and a $154 million contract to MDA Space Missions of
Brampton, Ontario, for Dextre and the grappling arm. By November,
Goddard engineers had become convinced that Dextre could do the
required maintenance jobs and instrument swaps. The preliminary
design review next month was to have been the first test of the concept.

MDA Space Missions Vice President Paul Cooper noted in a telephone
interview that Dextre, designed for the space station, is built and ready
to go to space, and ``if you're going to do a (Hubble) de-orbit anyway,
why not take a shot at fixing it?''

But Rothenberg, a former NASA associate administrator for spaceflight,
said Dextre ``is not the problem.'' Goddard must put together all
elements of the mission, and although the academies' study did not
think this could be done quickly enough, the engineers ``need an
opportunity'' to prove the contrary, he said.

Malcolm Street wrote:

:What about the Progress re-boost modules used for the ISS? You wouldn't
:need the full boost for the much lighter Hubble, and so could use some of
:the fuel to change the orbit to match Hubble.
:
:Obviously you'd need some way of accurately attaching to the end of Hubble
:and aligning the combination before firing. Obviously it's not easy nor
:likely.
:
:But I don't think it's as impossible as you think.

I'd suggest you work out the numbers for what such a change in orbital
inclination takes.

You're wrong.

--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn

Eric Chomko wrote:

Rand Simberg ) wrote:

: Robot repair, which is what was under discussion, had you been paying
: attention. Shuttle repair has an excellent chance of success.

Given no track record for the former and given a good track record for the
latter I would agree. But this begs an earlier question about using the
ISS as a robot repair mission testbed. So, rather than DEXTRE or
equivalent being shelved due to being to risky, shouldn't we continue
development for future use, and use ISS to test it?

Dextre itself is a derivative of the Special Purpose Dextrous Manipulator
(SPDM), an attachment for the Space Station Remote Manipulator System
(SSRMS -- aka the ISS robot arm). SPDM will likely be launched to the
ISS sometime in the 2007/2008 timeframe.

So, yes, you could say that ISS is being used to develop and test Dextre,
though in reality the SPDM was under development long before a robotic
Hubble repair mission became necessary. Considering also ISS's "inch-
worm-like" robot arm, the mobile transporter / mobile base system, and
the Japanese robot arm on the JEM, ISS should advance space robotics by
a pretty fair amount.

Mike

-----
Michael Kent Apple II Forever!!
St. Peters, MO

Michael Kent ) wrote:
: Eric Chomko wrote:

: Rand Simberg ) wrote:

: : Robot repair, which is what was under discussion, had you been paying
: : attention. Shuttle repair has an excellent chance of success.

: Given no track record for the former and given a good track record for the
: latter I would agree. But this begs an earlier question about using the
: ISS as a robot repair mission testbed. So, rather than DEXTRE or
: equivalent being shelved due to being to risky, shouldn't we continue
: development for future use, and use ISS to test it?

: Dextre itself is a derivative of the Special Purpose Dextrous Manipulator
: (SPDM), an attachment for the Space Station Remote Manipulator System
: (SSRMS -- aka the ISS robot arm). SPDM will likely be launched to the
: ISS sometime in the 2007/2008 timeframe.

: So, yes, you could say that ISS is being used to develop and test Dextre,
: though in reality the SPDM was under development long before a robotic
: Hubble repair mission became necessary. Considering also ISS's "inch-
: worm-like" robot arm, the mobile transporter / mobile base system, and
: the Japanese robot arm on the JEM, ISS should advance space robotics by
: a pretty fair amount.

Glad to hear that! I will be looking forward to ISS making breakthroughs
in that regard.

Eric

: Mike

: -----
: Michael Kent Apple II Forever!!
: St. Peters, MO
:

On 2005-02-26, Michael Kent wrote:

So, yes, you could say that ISS is being used to develop and test Dextre,
though in reality the SPDM was under development long before a robotic
Hubble repair mission became necessary. Considering also ISS's "inch-
worm-like" robot arm, the mobile transporter / mobile base system, and
the Japanese robot arm on the JEM, ISS should advance space robotics by
a pretty fair amount.

Hmm. Wasn't a lot of this intended as part of Freedom anyway? Certainly
I seem to vaguely recall the JEM was always intended to have an arm, and
some form of the mobile transporter's been around since the early
stages.

--
-Andrew Gray

Andrew Gray wrote:

On 2005-02-26, Michael Kent wrote:

So, yes, you could say that ISS is being used to develop and test Dextre,
though in reality the SPDM was under development long before a robotic
Hubble repair mission became necessary. Considering also ISS's "inch-
worm-like" robot arm, the mobile transporter / mobile base system, and
the Japanese robot arm on the JEM, ISS should advance space robotics by
a pretty fair amount.

Hmm. Wasn't a lot of this intended as part of Freedom anyway? Certainly
I seem to vaguely recall the JEM was always intended to have an arm, and
some form of the mobile transporter's been around since the early
stages.

Yes, I think all of it was. The SPDM went away for a while and then
came back, though.

Mike

-----
Michael Kent Apple II Forever!!
St. Peters, MO