Is the hubble telescope return back to the earth after its mission?
adil k asked:
You probably know the hubble telescope which is named after a famous scientist Edwin Hubble. I was wondering where would it go afters its mission and on wikipedia i read that its going to be deorbited probably from 2016 to 2021. But can you tell me that will it return to the earth or stay up in space like an interstellar probe?
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You probably know the hubble telescope which is named after a famous scientist Edwin Hubble. I was wondering where would it go afters its mission and on wikipedia i read that its going to be deorbited probably from 2016 to 2021. But can you tell me that will it return to the earth or stay up in space like an interstellar probe?
April 16th, 2009 at 10:41 am
They are going to do a controlled entry into the earth’s atmosphere but it will be burned up in the re-entry. Over the years, on all of the servicing missions, they have added too much new equipment to it so it will no longer fit into the cargo hold of a space shuttle. Capturing it and bringing it home for a museum is no longer an option. The best they can do now is to make sure that it will not hurt anyone when it comes back to the earth. It should be quite a wonderful sight as it burns up though. Biggest meteor we saw and lived to tell about!
I was sad about this information until I learned about the new equipment that they plan to put into orbit in about 2020 or so. Wow! We are really in for great new things. I am really excited about it.
Our club had a NASA guest speaker at our monthly meeting this month and he shared what he could without revealing top secret projects. Space future is going to be more than we ever dreamed! I can’t wait!
April 16th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
Neither, it will burn up in Earth’s atmosphere.
April 20th, 2009 at 12:21 am
Im sure there will be bigger and better telescopes by 2016 to replace the hubble but even so the hubble would still be very valuable, it would be easy to get the antique back to earth and put it in the national space museum