To be honest, if you look at some of the really good pics o Hubble - she's a bit of a mess. The insulation is cracking all over the place. I think a return to 1G would do a lot of damage and make he look like something of a sorry bird aestheticaly. Far better to have a 1:1 model, and then photos of the real thing where she belongs.

Doug

That's a great shame Doug, I hadn't realised she was so worn, but if that's true then fair enough.

Like many, I always imagined going on some sort of pilgrimage to see Hubble in the Smithsonian - the original plan was to return her to Earth and put her on display there, I think I'm right in saying? - and walking beneath that huge barrel tube and marvelling at all she gave us, but I guess that just won't happen. But swatting her out of the sky like an annoying bug seems just wrong to me, a quick and dirty fix that's typical of the way we so quickly look for the easiest way out of problems today. I actually think there'd be a lot of resistance to the idea of blowing Hubble up, and rightly so. Apart from anything else, it wouldn't teach us a thing; de-orbiting Hubble in a controlled way would be expensive, yes, but it would teach us a lot about how to do that with other payloads in the future. Blasting her to a cloud of tumbling, twinkling debris would just be a gung-ho, macho display of firepower.

IMO.

Here's one example : http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/images/c...ain_99_96i1.jpg - big crack down the MLI.

You can see more cracks and gaps on the left here, near the ESA logo : http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images...109-328-026.jpg

You can see an MLI patch they mounted with string one servicing mission : http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images...103_731_051.jpg : there are cracks in the panels on the left as well I think.

The thermal cycling has made it very very brittle. It wouldn't surprise me if they ended up taking a fairly 'bare' Hubble out of the payload bay, and then a dozen bin-liners of broken MLI from under it on the payload bay floor. Lots of long words like embrttlement etc are here - http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/RT2001/5000/5480dever1.html

Interesting - so it might be worth returning bits of it as an "LDEF" type-experiment? It'll have been in orbit for eighteen years this April, last servicing in August this year...

Andy

They already have - indeed, I've seen Hubble solar cells at the National Space Centre (complete with micro meteor impacts )

Doug

A better intermediate term disposal solution for hubble would be to boost it into a higher "disposal" type orbit, one of those orbits above the masses of low orbit constellations of sats, where almost nothing will have any chance of intersecting it before a future vehicle can retrieve it for an orbital museum.

They are moving the docking system from Atlantis to make room for the "servicing" hardware. Another "issue" for the retrieval mission, is that the payload bay would have to be empty at launch. This would make the mission really cost prohibitive.

The ASAT idea also has holes in it. HST is large enough that a hit isn't going to obliterate it. Large pieces of the mirror and CMG's from the hit could still survive entry

Jim, what's a CMG?

{Psst: Control moment gyro}

Still, they would be a lot smaller and perhaps fewer after an ASAT hit. I doubt if any very large pieces of mirror would survive a hit at 8+ kms-1 for example.

And besides, it's bad luck to break a mirror.

Not if the hit was the forward part of the spacecraft

(Thanks! Yeah, I imagine that those are a bit hefty.)

Does anyone have a link to a map of the debris orbit(s)?

I just saw the most amazing little fireball to the Northeast of me around 6:15 local time. It was unusual in so many ways, that it made me think it might be some kind of debris reentering.

Was it kind of slow compared to normal meteors? That's usually the big observational difference; real meteors are fast!

Slow, and quite bluish in color with a much longer tail than any I have ever observed. It also seemed to be traveling in a discernible arc downward. 60 degrees or so above the NNE horizon traveling from North to East.

I saw this too from South Bay. I had just finished an ATM transaction and the timestamp on the receipt says 6:15. It was also to the Northeast about 20-30 deg up from horizon. Bright fireball, bluish, with faint trail, slight angle down. Speed was slower than most meteors in showers, maybe 3 times slower than a Leonid.

Boy howdy, and I can't say for certain, but this sure sounds like a debris reentry event. I saw a Molynia booster come in about 30 years ago in dark skies, and it was painfully slow compared to a meteor (albeit spectacular nonetheless). You guys might have gotten lucky indeed!

Looking on a map, the direction to the fireball from my location was also NNE. If EGD was in Elk Grove, he is also NNE of my location by about 130 km. Given my elevation of 25 deg and EGD's elevation of 60 deg would place the object about 83 km over a location about 48 km NNE of EGD.

I agree. That would have put the ground track between Auburn and Grass Valley heading along a path South of Lake Tahoe. Probably nothing left of it, but if something did survive as far as the lithosphere, it would have impacted in a very remote section of the High Sierras or Eastern Nevada.

Wouldn't it be ironic of a large piece of debris made it to Edwards AFB, where (IIRC) many of the mil-sats are launched?

--Bill

I'm not aware of any launches actually FROM EAFB. I may be wrong though.

Doug

Unless you count Pegasus or perhaps the X-15 program...no, no launches from EAFB.

Vandenberg AFB is around 130 miles west of there as the crow flies, which is what Bill probably meant, and I believe that was in fact where US-193 was launched given its (former) orbital inclination.

Maybe they got the tractor beams at Groom Lake working now..... THAT's what this test was really
all about...

Yep, I was thinking Vandenburg but my fingers typed Edwards.

--Bill

One aspect of the USA-193 episode that has not been discussed is the need for
secrecy regarding its demise. As some of you know, stamping a program with
the "CLASSIFIED" label can hide a multitude of sins. Of course, I am not in favor of
revealing details of USA-193's payload.
However, the details of what caused USA-193 to arrive DOA in orbit (according to
the Space rumor mill) should be discussed. When MPL or MCO disappear at Mars, the media
is all over the story, as well they should be. However, when USA-193 becomes the latest
space recon SNAFU, barely a peep is heard.
Billions are invested in NRO's satellites, but the Military "good-ole-boys" network have the
perfect rip-off scheme. They get ALL aspects of an NRO recon satellite classified, so that they
get their billions of dollars regardless of whether the satellite works or not. All that they have
to say when the media come calling with questions is one word - "Classified."
Now whether USA-193's demise was caused by the malfunction of its radio, guidance system,
power system, or propulsion system, an Anomaly Review Board could be appointed with
the directive to release its findings publicly. This could be done without compromising national
security and without revealing the nature of the payload.
As with ITAR, I am against ALL unnecessary government secrecy. It costs us money and
enables contractors to pad their fees and build shoddy satellites. Oversight is the only means
to keep this business honest.

Another Phil