What Has Happened To The Hubble Telescope?
The Hubble telescope is a great modern achievement first put into space 16 years ago but it may be nearing the end of its useful life. There are plans to send a service mission to make urgent repairs and to refurbish the telescope with new instruments to extend its life beyond 2012 but the final decision on whether to go ahead with this has not yet been made. The mission may go ahead in 2008 but some experts consider it may be too dangerous. The telescope had been serviced regularly by the space shuttle but then the Columbia shuttle disaster in February 2003 halted many of the planned missions. There have been worries that the lack of opportunity to send astronauts to the telescope’s high orbit may lead to it being abandoned. One of the dangers of sending a service mission is that it would involve a space walk and, unlike missions of this type to the international space station, there is nowhere to provide a safe haven if something were to go wrong. A second shuttle may be required, wh
