Elon Musk's company will examine how to extend the life of the veteran space observatory.
Nasa and the SpaceX rocket company are to study the feasibility of running a private astronaut mission to extend the life of the Hubble telescope.
Hubble was serviced on five occasions by astronauts in Nasa's space shuttle, the last time being in 2009. This might give it an additional 20-30 years of life, although longevity would also be heavily dependent on the continued good operation of the telescope's systems and, in particular, its four instruments.Hubble has been a hugely productive astronomical tool. Over its career to date it has made more than 1.5 million observations, resulting in the publication of some 19,000 scholarly research papers.
"I want to be absolutely clear, we're not making an announcement of a date, or that we'd definitely go forward with a plan like this. But we want to have a study to see really what would be feasible," said Thomas Zurbuchen, the director of science at Nasa.SpaceX Dragon capsules are used to ferry astronauts to and from the space station
"We're just looking forward to studying what's possible and what's needed and working all this in coordination with Nasa." The same ring could now alternatively be the means a Dragon capsule uses to lock on to Hubble and push it upwards.
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