Possible big news coming from NASA and Jared Isaacman

[Yazata]

NASA has a teleconference for today (Thursday) at 4:30 PM EDT/1:30 PM PDT. Eric Berger reports that insiders tell him that it's going to be "big".

https://twitter.com/SciGuySpace/status/1...2061474816

Eric Berger has obtained a list of participants and says "Ok, some big clues here" about what will be announced:

https://twitter.com/SciGuySpace/status/1...5922125825

1. Dr. Z (Thomas Zurbuchen) the NASA Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate

2. Kathy Lueders the NASA Associate Administrator for the Space Operations Mission Directorate

3. Jessica Jenson - SpaceX VP for Customer Operations and Integration

4. Jared Isaacman - commercial astronaut and Polaris Dawn commander

5. Patrick Crouse - Hubble Space Telescope Project Manager 

Looking at these five people and it's pretty clear what will be announced: Jared Isaacman appears to be putting together a SpaceX Crew Dragon mission to go up and service Hubble, which is otherwise approaching the end of its life!

[Magical Realist]

Oh darn! I thought they were going to announce their contact with a UAP!

[Yazata]

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-...tudy-today

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/LDpERNu-TIk

[Yazata]

Ok, what they announced was a "study" to determine the feasibility of a commercial crew vehicle flying the first Hubble servicing mission since the space shuttle.

NASA says that SpaceX approached them with the idea. (And it sounds like Jared originally put it to SpaceX.) Jared is looking at using the second of his three Polaris missions for this purpose.

The basic idea is to boost Hubble back to the higher orbit that it originally had in 1990 when it launched. They are also looking at the feasibility of servicing Hubble with spacewalks. But they don't have any solid plans at the moment and are just announcing a NASA/SpaceX feasibility study. NASA says that no taxpayer funds are changing hands at this point. Orbital and deep space servicing missions will be a thing in the future, particularly if humanity becomes a multiplanetary species as Elon wants, and SpaceX wants to be on the ground floor of developing the technology.

Interestingly, NASA sounded a lot more upbeat about Hubble's health than I expected from all the doom and gloom that we read in the media. They say that Hubble still has three functioning gyros to point it, the three "enhanced" ones that the last Shuttle servicing missions installed, and these gyros seem to be working fine so far. NASA anticipates Hubble continuing to work through the end of this decade and into the 2030's.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/202...ossibility

[Yazata]

https://sam.gov/opp/7d73f2f1cbf34603b773...=194653967

NASA has officially issued an "RFI" (Request for Information) asking commercial space companies to submit concepts for reboosting the Hubble.

It's actually a pretty strange RFI, since the government is requesting commercial space to submit proposals for boosting Hubble for Free, at their own expense!!! The government says flat out that they won't be paying for it!

I'm thinking that this proposal is custom tailored for SpaceX and Jared Isaacman. NASA has already said that SpaceX was the one that approached them to sound them out about the possibility of boosting Hubble. (And Jared Isaacman is probably the one who put the idea in SpaceX's ear.)

SpaceX wants to develop on-orbit refueling and servicing capabilities. This offers them the opportunity to develop those capabilities with a Hubble mission, which Jared Isaacman proposes to pay for as the second of his three Polaris missions. (The first, Polaris Dawn, will feature the first all private spacewalk in new SpaceX EVA suits, the second will service Hubble, and the third will be the first human spaceflight on Starship.) Jared already has private astronauts: two men (one of them is him) and two women training. And Jared has already been to orbit in a Crew Dragon already so he's for real. (He's the founder of Draken International, the world's largest private air force with 150 jets.)

And NASA gets Hubble boosted into a higher orbit for free, without having to pay for it.

The RFI says:

"NASA is seeking interest in demonstrating commercial capabilities to re-boost the orbit of a satellite and is considering utilizing the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) for a demonstration in the next few years. Partner(s) would be expected to participate and undertake this mission on a no-exchange-of-funds basis. Should NASA decide to pursue this demonstration, GSFC would provide technical information and technical consultation with GSFC HST experts to facilitate rendezvous, docking, and reboost. Partner(s) would be expected to provide all other resources (including the launch vehicle, spacecraft, crew if applicable to the approach, and mission operations except for HST operations during the mission) necessary to successfully perform the demonstration."

https://sam.gov/opp/87a6b12f06f74610b95d...5007e/view

[Yazata]

The Hubble Space Telescope is currently experiencing health issues:

"NASA is working to resume science operations of the Hubble Space Telescope after it entered safe mode Nov. 23 due to an ongoing gyroscope issue. Hubble’s instruments are stable, and the telescope is in good health"

https://twitter.com/NASAHubble/status/17...7961916738

The last Space Shuttle Hubble servicing mission in 2009 installed six new gyroscopes. Two (for redundancy) for each of x,y and z axes. Fast forward to now and only three gyros are still operating. And this month one of the three remaining gyros became intermittent. It went off-line and triggered Hubble entering safe mode. NASA succeeded in bringing it back online, but it died again about three days later. So they brought it back again and it quickly died again. NASA says it is evaluating the situation and figuring out what to do now. (I think that they believe they can make it work with only two gyros.)

And Jared Isaacman says , "Put us in, coach!"

https://twitter.com/rookisaacman/status/...3658653042

Jared says:

Polaris Mission:
- free mission to tax payers to boost and enhance
- keeps Hubble going decade+ alongside JWST for science
- ongoing operating cost of Hubble nothing compared to replacement telescope not to mention time to build.
- advances commercial space capabilities
- opportunity to retrieve later on Starship and place in museum

No Mission:
- Hubble remains unhealthy and science suffers
- eventual uncontrolled reentry or $500 million+ tax payer funded controlled reentry mission
- No museum

A study was completed earlier this year…this should be an easy risk/reward decision.

https://twitter.com/rookisaacman/status/...2075289748