Demystifying him.
This reminds me of the last time Hubble needed repairs two decades ago, and Sean O’Keefe didn’t want to risk a crew on it after Columbia. When Mike Griffin came in, he reversed the decision. I won’t be surprised if the same thing happens this time.
When you design an orbiting space telescope in such a way so that it can be serviced in-orbit. You service it in orbit…
They did design Hubble to be serviced in orbit, but they didn’t make it easy. The astronauts trained for years to work on Hubble. They had to remove a lot of screws to gain access, and keeping those screws from floating away in weightlessness and while wearing those gloves was no easy task. In addition, we no longer have the Shuttle with an airlock and a robotic arm to hold Hubble steady.
If they decide to extend Hubble’s life, perhaps the best way is to attach a stabilization module with new gyros to the telescope’s base. Even that isn’t easy because there will be issues of command and control, power, and satellite balance to consider.
I’ve wondered but not researched the feasibility of using the Crew Dragon Trunk to hold Hubble components. The gyro cabinets, if I recall, are quite large. You may be right. I’ve advocated here and elsewhere for an airlock module to be built that could dock with Dragon that included a robotic arm for stabilizing objects in orbit. If you want to dedicate one to Hubble you’d keep it in a co-orbit for future servicing missions w/o needing a lot of Delta-V. But having several of these hanging out in LEO could be quite useful.
Perhaps with Starship things like this will be done. Focusing on the MVP (minimum viable product) rather than stuffing a ton of stuff into a design. Like a house, certain rooms drive expenses and can’t really be done without but adding space is relatively cheap.
Getting Starship to this level of operational capability doesn’t overlap well with the timing of the collapse of Hubble’s orbit. If Hubble is to be rescued it will have to be done with F9/Dragon hardware.
Mark Clampin was head of the Astrophysics directorate. he tried to cut funding for Hubble and Chandra orbiting observatories. He essentially wanted to shut Chandra down. But Congress and others intervened and now Isaacman will be in charge. He seems very supportive of Chandra:L he appeared at the 25 years of Chandra Symposium.
And the article you linked to said:
“Isaacman has also been an advocate for NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory. NASA’s fiscal year 2025 budget request proposed a steep cut in the operating budget for Chandra, one that astronomers argued would effectively shut down the 25-year-old space telescope. Isaacman was among those who leapt to Chandra’s defense.”
Chandra and others have submitted their proposal for Senior Review. The in-guide budget that Chandra was given was essentially a shutdown budget.
However, Clampin was moved out of the Directorate and is now now serving as acting deputy associate administrator for the science directorate. He replaces Sandra Connelly, who NASA said last fall was planning to retire at the end of the year.
Clampin said he accepted the one-year assignment to support the Science Mission Directorate during the transition to the new Trump administration.
So I think Clampin may have been stripped of control and moved to some position where he can’t cause trouble.
I wonder how much, if at all, Isaacman had to do with that.