Aging Hubble Gets No Fix-It Funding

While NASA did better than many agencies in President Bush’s budget plan, receiving a 2.4% increase to $16.46 billion, it got no money to save the popular but aging Hubble Space Telescope -- setting the stage for a battle in Congress.

The Hubble telescope, which has delivered stunning images of deep space for more than 14 years since its 1990 launch, is expected to fail as early as 2007 unless a repair mission is launched soon. But NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe has ruled out using a space shuttle to replace gyroscopes and batteries aboard Hubble for safety reasons.

Scientists have studied the feasibility of sending a robot to do the work, but the National Research Council concluded recently that there wasn’t time to build a robot capable of doing the job. Instead of funding a repair mission, NASA is seeking $75 million to develop a de-orbiting mission near the end of the decade that will steer the giant telescope into the ocean once it has gone blind.

The big winner in the NASA budget is the exploration program aimed at returning to the moon and developing new technology that could pave the way for an eventual manned mission to Mars.

“It’s a very tight budget year,” said John Logsdon of George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute. NASA “did get an increase where most agencies didn’t.”

Nevertheless, the 2.4% overall increase is only about half of what the White House had promised last year after Bush vowed to ramp up America’s space program.

The Hubble telescope is the most high-profile loss. NASA officials point out that the telescope was designed to last only 15 years, a target it will reach in the next year. They also stress that the new budget contains development funds for the James Webb Space Telescope, an infrared sensor which is expected to reveal some of the earliest stars and galaxies formed after the Big Bang. It is scheduled to launch in 2011.

Logsdon said these explanations were unlikely to salve the feelings of Hubble’s many fans. “There’s going to be lots of complaints,” he said.

Among the first to weigh in was Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.), a longtime supporter of the space telescope, who serves on the committee overseeing NASA’s budget.

“Hubble’s best days are ahead of it, not behind it,” she said in a statement. “That’s why I am so disappointed that President Bush has failed to include funding in this year’s budget for a servicing mission that would extend the life of the Hubble.”

Pointing out that she had fought to add $300 million for a Hubble servicing mission last year, Mikulski said she would do the same this year.

When repaired, Mikulski said, Hubble’s vision could improve by a factor of 10, and “allow us to look back almost to the beginning of the universe.”

How that repair mission could be accomplished was left unexplained. Without a robot, the only alternative is to send a shuttle crew to the telescope. O’Keefe has refused to consider that in the wake of the Columbia shuttle disaster that killed seven astronauts in 2003.

Another budgetary decision likely to disappoint the space community is NASA’s deep cuts in the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter program, designed to launch around 2015 to study some of the bizarre worlds circling the solar system’s largest planet.