robots to save hubble?
The Canadian Space Agency's Dextre robot is a likely candidate for the attempt to save Hubble.
"On Monday, O'Keefe gave his strongest endorsement yet of a robotic mission, praising the preliminary work done by Hubble scientists and engineers at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and urging them to press ahead with fix-it plans minus astronauts."
Gee... February 1 2003 to August 9, 2004... it has only been 18 months since Columbia tanked. In the meantime the gyros on Hubble have started to fail, one instrument had to be shut down last week, and the batteries are dying. 18 months to do basically... nothing.
Talk about fiddling while Rome burns. This is a decision that ought to have been made on February 2nd 2003; satellite integration with the launch vehicle ought to be going on today. I guess they are waiting until Hubble's gyros completely fail and it becomes impossible to fix or safely deorbit.
If NASA thought shit hit the fan with Columbia, wait and see what happens if they wait too long to save or safely deorbit Hubble. Hopefully it doesn't crash in downtown Beijing or some other heavily-populated area.
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