• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Dextre the Robot May Fly to Rescue of Hubble Telescope

Posted on: Wednesday, 11 August 2004, 06:00 CDT

Dextre the robot may fly to rescue of Hubble telescope

By MARCIA DUNN Associated Press

Wednesday, August 11, 2004

Cape Canaveral, Fla. -- NASA said Tuesday that it was moving ahead with plans to send a robot to the rescue of the aging Hubble Space Telescope.

The leading candidate is a contraption named Dextre -- short for dexterous -- that bears little resemblance to movie-inspired visions of a robot.

A decision won't be made until next summer on whether to launch the two-armed Dextre or any other robot to Hubble's rescue in 3 1/2 years. But already it looks as though the Canadian Space Agency's robot could accomplish most if not everything that spacewalking astronauts were meant to do. Dextre originally was designed for handiwork at the International Space Station.

Normally, astronauts would work on Hubble, and there are many hurdles to relying on robots to fix all that ails the 14-year-old telescope.

But months ago NASA's chief, Sean O'Keefe, ruled out an astronaut mission because of safety concerns with space shuttles since the Columbia disaster.

It appeared that the Hubble would be doomed, unable to send back more of its dramatic pictures in a few years. But support from astronomers and scientists opened the door to considering robots.

After months of engineering analysis, robots clearly are the space agency's favored approach.

On Monday, O'Keefe gave his strongest endorsement yet of a robotic mission, praising the preliminary work done by Hubble scientists and engineers at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and urging them to press ahead with fix-it plans minus astronauts.

"Everybody says, 'We want to save the Hubble' -- well, let's go save the Hubble," O'Keefe said in an interview with the Orlando Sentinel.

O'Keefe plans to ask Congress for money to accomplish the job. He estimates that it will take about $1 billion to $1.6 billion to develop and launch a robot to make the needed upgrades to keep the popular observatory running and to get it out of orbit once its work is through.

Among the most pressing tasks are installing fresh batteries and gyroscopes to keep it stabilized, and replacing two science instruments.

The goal is to give Hubble five more years of life. Without help, the on-board batteries will probably be the first thing to go, in 2007 or 2008.

More News in this Category