Hubble Question...

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



Apologies if I am missing something obvious - but consider the following:

The main reason for not servicing the Hubble AIUI is there is no safe haven or
tile repair system if the orbiter were to be damaged during take off.

The shuttle payload bay has dimensions 15x60ft (4.6x18.3m)
and has a maximum payload weight of approx 50,000lbs (22,680kg)

A Soyuz TM is 7m long, 2.7m diameter and weighs about 7 tons.

So.... on a mission to replace Hubble gyros or add new instruments
why not just load up 2 x Soyuz into the orbiter payload bay? In the
unlikely event of the shuttle being damaged on the way to orbit
you have a bail out facilty for 6 astronauts.

If transfer from the orbiter to 2 different Soyuz's is a problem then fly a
skeleton crew of 3 and engineer a docking adapter directly from the
shuttle payload bay to the Soyuz.



Andy