Robotics review results in bad news for Hubble

By Leonard David

Senior space writer

updated 1:30 a.m. ET April 1, 2005

A major review last week of servicing the Hubble Space Telescope has led NASA officials to a "deorbit only" position.

That’s an outcome from an intensive preliminary design review held last week at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The appraisal involved volumes of technical data, with more than 200 experts from NASA and aerospace industry contractor teams attending.

The assessment backs an earlier decision by the White House to scuttle the Hubble. A robotically controlled, liquid-fueled motor would eventually be docked to the telescope. Once ignited, the engine would push the huge observatory into a controlled nose-dive toward a remote ocean spot.

Intensive work has been under way at Goddard to develop the tools, technology and procedures for telerobotic servicing of Hubble. That NASA-contracted effort has been led by MD Robotics of Brampton, Ontario.

Impressive, but not revelatory
"The NASA position is, we are not contemplating continuing the telerobotic servicing mission," said the space agency’s program executive for the Hubble Robotic Servicing Mission, Mark Borkowski, who also led last week’s review. "We are planning to convert to a deorbit-only mission," he told Space.com.

Borkowski said that those engaged in working toward the preliminary design review did a "super job." But he mirrored the view of an earlier National Academy of Sciences look at Hubble servicing options. That blue-ribbon panel study took the position that the chance of success for a robotic makeover of Hubble was remote.

"Now we’re going to go through a very deliberative decision process here [at NASA Headquarters]. We will listen to what people have to say," Borkowski said.

"We don’t want to sound like we’re irrationally inflexible," he added, "but at this point we don’t see a likelihood that there is some new information out there that’s going to cause us to have a revelation. What we saw was impressive, but not revelatory."

The review captured the work done to date on telerobotic servicing. There is no plan to do a critical design for a robotic servicing mission, Borkowski said.

Risk management plan
The four-day-long review last week also brought to the forefront several issues needing close watch.

One is the entire concept of doing an autonomous docking of deorbit hardware with Hubble, Borkowski said. "That’s not a trivial little exercise," he said.

Provisions are being made in the event that Hubble could be in a slow tumble. "We have to account for a lot of this being done autonomously. That’s probably a significant technical challenge. Not insurmountable, but again, it’s the kind of thing that makes you scratch your head about the schedule," Borkowski advised.

Among other issues deserving of added attention, Borkowski continued, is software development. Keeping close tabs on software development will be key, to avoid any potential risk of impacting the deorbit schedule. Lastly, integrating all the computer smarts and hardware is likely to create surprises. A risk management plan to deal with uncertainty will be needed, he said.

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