NASA says it is keeping options open after the US National Research Council (NRC) recommended the agency "take no actions that would preclude a Space Shuttle servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope".
In an interim report on its NASA-requested assessment of options for extending Hubble's life, the NRC urges the space agency to commit to a servicing mission that accomplishes the instrument-replacement objectives planned for the cancelled SM-4 Shuttle flight, and to keep open the option of a manned mission while pursuing a potential robotic servicing mission.
In response, NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe says NASA is "committed to exploring ways to safely extend the useful scientific life of Hubble", and will "keep options open" while the challenges of a robotic mission are examined.
NASA cancelled the Shuttle servicing mission earlier this year, arguing it could not be performed safely within the guidelines set by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB). The NRC disagrees, saying a Shuttle flight to Hubble "is not precluded by or inconsistent with" the CAIB's recommendations.
The NRC says "compelling scientific returns will result" from installation of a new wide-field camera and cosmic origins spectrograph as planned for the original SM-4 Shuttle mission. But it says the proposed robotic servicing mission is "highly complex" and requires significant technology development and demonstration to reach flight readiness.
The report recommends NASA immediately take an active role in robotic space experiments planned by the US Air Force for November (XSS-11) and for September 2006 by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Orbital Express).
Source: Flight International
