NRO Gives NASA Two Hubble-Class Telescopes (Shh!)
NASA gets two military spy telescopes for astronomy, Washington Post
“The U.S. government’s secret space program has decided to give NASA two telescopes as big as, and even more powerful than, the Hubble Space Telescope. Designed for surveillance, the telescopes from the National Reconnaissance Office were no longer needed for spy missions and can now be used to study the heavens. They have 2.4-meter (7.9 feet) mirrors, just like the Hubble. They also have an additional feature that the civilian space telescopes lack: A maneuverable secondary mirror that makes it possible to obtain more focused images. These telescopes will have 100 times the field of view of the Hubble, according to David Spergel, a Princeton astrophysicist and co-chair of the National Academies advisory panel on astronomy and astrophysics.”
‘Repurposed’ Telescope May Explore Secrets of Dark Energy, NY Times
“Working in secret with a small band of astronomers for the last couple of months, Dr. Grunsfeld, famous as the Hubble telescope’s on-orbit repairman, has now come up with a plan, which is being presented to the public on Monday.”
Keith’s note: Even though NASA officials have been made available to the Washington Post and New York Times, a NASA PAO representative tells me that NASA will not be issuing any official statement on this topic. This is totally bizzare. NASA suddenly gets handed the equivalent of two Hubble Space Telescopes (apparently) for free, NASA folks talk to two newspapers, and then that’s it? Not even a “thank you” note? I am told that there may be a media telecon today. Stay tuned for an update.
Keith’s update: There is a media telecon at 2:00 pm today. I will live blog it at @NASAWatch. Also NASA PAO apparently contacted a few reporters about something in advance – but did not tell not others – and now they are backpeddling saying that they did contact me when in fact they did not. It is time for someone to admit that they made a mistake. Also, there will be no press release or statement from NASA because NRO told NASA not to issue one. But NASA did make NASA employees and advisors available to the New York Times and Washington Post. This story gets weirder with every passing hour.
Long overdue, but still rad.
When Hubble was launched, it was touted as a great achievement, but in fact at that time the US was transitioning UPWARDS from the 2-meter buses and onto much larger ones. Hubble was the last of its kind, not the first.
This was 20 years ago.
There should be a directive that for every 5 downward looking telescopes the NRO sets up, they much set up at least 1 upward looking one. (and fine, in case of major war, they can commandeer it and point it back down)
Hubble sat in storage for years before it was launched. NASA had no help form the spooks when the mirror was ground in the late ’70s and the scope assembled. After it was launched and deemed defective it was decried as an example of NASA failure of Big Science. Even one professor wrote a book about what a miserable failure Hubble was (and NASA. Sound familiar after reading the comments about SpaceX on this site?). All the while the spooks were sitting on years of experience of manufacturing such scopes and had a number of them available!
Someone please correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought the Hubble was built by the same contractor (LMCO) based on the same structure. I am not sure why the mirror was not a duplicate (it’s not focal length, but could it have been built for different wavelength? or more instruments?) but then again some stuff was done differently on purpose – Hubble was launched to great fanfare on Shuttle, whereas the older spy satellites were launched quietly (and cheaply, and reliably) on rockets.
As for NASA sucking in so many ways, sure, but an engineering mistake like Hubble’s is most definitely NOT one of them.
I guess that you did not read the failure report on the mirror. The test engineer(s) did the test on the mirror curvature and actually measured the exact deformity. However, they did not believe the piece of test equipment used and they stuck a washer into that piece of test equipment (I think it was called the “null corrector”) to make the test come out right.
Read about the failure of the oxygen sensor on Apollo 13, you will find a similar mistake.
In Korea F-86 jets were falling out of the sky with aileron lock, killing fighter pilots. The failure was traced back to a bolt that was installed backward. When the production line person responsible for installing that bolt was asked why he did put in backward despite the drawing, his response was “any damn fool knows that the bolt goes in the other way!”. They did not tell him how many people he killed.
People screw up. Human error will always happen. Blaming the NRO for Hubble is like blaming the Pope for the failure of your condom and the kid that resulted.
Not feasible, reconsats and astronomical telescopes have different instruments. Also, it is not the job of the NRO to make astronomical telescopes
That last part will never, ever, ever, ever, happen. The NRO will never voluntarily disclose the capabilities of its current satellites — which is what dedicating an “upward-looking” one to science would do.
The sixth doesn’t have to point “up” to be scientifically useful, it can point “down” at a different surface. Use them for planetary science. Much more similarity of purpose and design.
Frankly, it’d be interesting to see one of these two repurposed as a Moon or Mars Observer.
What a cool idea lolololol 🙂
Change that to it WILL lol
Do it with some that are in orbit now. Fix me up in orbit and send them 🙂
This goes to show the kind of assets that are available to the US. The spooks and the military have a larger space budget than NASA’s. It is almost an embarrassment of riches where they can release two(!) scopes larger and more powerful than Hubble for scientists to use. God only knows what they have now if such telescopes are obsolete to them. I can understand why they don’t want to make a big deal out of this. “Pay no attention to our space budget behind the curtain”. Run along now and go play.
Yes, but it comes at a good time. Was at a lecture recently at Stanford, where digital astronomy meant 96 GB of data downloaded from a Palomar scope was taken each night and compared against a master, to find supernova in the early hours of “explosion”.
The model works well for space borne observatories as well.
And we now possess a means to transfer new instrument platforms to them via robotic cargo craft for experiment change-out/upgrade.
So the opportunity here is to evolve the model of space based astronomy by modelling it after changes taking place in earth based observatories – an infrastructure to revise / service multiple observatories cost-effectively while eliminating the lack of scale (just one Hubble on orbit) – you can prove it on two.
So you take the Shuttle heritage of on orbit refit and design its evolution into enhanced Hubble-class scopes, that can take always the latest instruments proven on the ground, and get a better research product than Hubble, at a greater rate (more of them), off a volume cost reduced support platform.
The problem with the Webb approach of the one-shot, bigger than biggest approach … is that everything becomes too costly, too rarified, non scaleable. A second generation Hubble is a more conservative approach to economically upscaling a proven performer.
How you keep NASA from politically being used, is to do another COTS like program that leverages other programs components into a logisitical framework to enhance a given economic activity, for greater return.
All research, industrial and institutional, works by much the same rules, and is frequency/access dependant. When you unlock these issues, other projects more valuable in space can now be considered.
But like COTS, the motivations for success can’t be “cost plus”, they need to be “ernest money” oriented and for a larger goal.
One way to do this – instrument packages on returnable / refurbishable craft that can be years on orbit and returned to earth. Lets say you berth one to five capsules per telescope, and periodically deorbit one, possibly using IDSS or CBM, possibly using unpressurized cargo for CMG’s, or modernized panels.
Like earth based observatories, you standardize packages and test the on smaller scopes before you use them on larger ones. Thus, as you get packages working on LEO telescopes, you then use the samelogistical infrastructure for halo orbit ones as well.
So you have a renewable telescope base that you can incrementally improve upon the experience of the prior.
An amazing gift. Could you imagine what these birds could see if set up as a sparse aperture!
WTF ???
NASA officials stressed that they do not have a program to launch even
one telescope at the moment, and that at the very earliest, under
reasonable budgets, it would be 2020 before one of the two gifted
telescopes could be in order.
Wouldn’t the detectors present a big problem here? The military looks down at a amazingly bright earth, while astronomers look up at a very low background sky.
PAO’s reticence may indicate that credit for breaking the story rests solely with reporters at the Washington Post and the New York Times. Quite likely, they bypassed PAO and sought out the relevant sources on their own. That’s what good reporters do.
Spooks are embarrassed as they jettison some birds they don”t want to pay the upkeep on. Nor do they want the back story on these to come out because its still “sensitive”. Guess they thought they’d be able to elide notice.
Not a chance.
The question is “Why make this public information instead of splashing them?” … the meaning behind the gesture is profound.
They are of the same family.
What upkeep? According to the article, these things are sitting on the ground. They’re not in orbit.
Just possessing such is costly. There are many on orbit too.
Those sneaky, cheap bastards, giving NASA free stuff like that. Get ’em!
Ok guys, before everyone runs off with this:
1) They can’t have “100 x the resolving power of Hubble” because that’s impossible. HST is diffraction-limited, so unless these are a free-flying interferometer, or are 200 meters in diameter, they have essentially exactly the same resolution as HST.
2) Spies look at really bright objects (the earth). Astronomers look at really faint objects. The design and optimization is totally different. It is doubtful a spy satellite could particularly do very much that an astronomer would want. Sure, there are some things, but not most. It reminds me of the early days of adaptive optics, when it was very obvious there would be little or no plug-n-play with military systems vs astronomical systems.
3) It still costs money to operate one of the things. Who is paying to rework the flight software? To run the operations?
“They can’t have “100 x the resolving power of Hubble” because that’s impossible.”
That’s because that’s a misquote. The viewable area is 100x the size of Hubble. I have links, and will post shortly.
Folks:
It’s seems obvious from the similarity of the mirror sizes that these two ‘birds’ are more than just Hubble class telescopes, they are Hubble siblings. Oh, stripped down some, sure, and other stuff added, but kin nontheless. From what Ralphy said about Hubble launch delays, they may have launched before Hubble. Any chance the Shuttles took ’em up?
Also obvious, if the NRO doesn’t need these birds any more… what do they have now? Facetious question, I know ;|.
tinker
Now that I bother to read the article, I see these are (as I had heard rumors last week) just bare hardware are sitting on the ground. Ok, great. So what? Again, where’s the money? What do we do with them? Who pays to complete them? There was only one planned mission in the next decade that would use anything like this, that being WFIRST. So I guess you could have a small savings, although now a pre-existing mirror has to drive the design around it.
Anyone remember in Cliff Stoll’s book “The Cukoo’s Egg”? in which Stoll writes he met with someone from the Pentagon or NRO or CIA or whatever and they strongly hinted that they had built a Hubble class telescope for the obvious purpose of looking down, not up.
Well, I guess it was true all along, amazing.
Folks:
What? This hardware is on the ground?
Oh, well. Unless they are fully integrated spacecraft and not just the mirror sets, they won’t be going anywhere for a long, long time, if ever.
Sigh.
tinker
Tinker,
It occurs to me that one of these satellite mirror sets plus the rest of the goodies to make it a whole satellite should just fit into a Dragon extended trunk. Instead of letting the trunk burn up on reentry, find a way to have the Dragon put it in orbit and you have Son of Hubble in a Dragon Trunk (with added Dracos for station keeping). Obviously I haven’t worked it through, but it seemed like a cost effective possibility.
Steve
Hubble didn’t have thrusters to prevent possible mirror contamination.
Would popping dragon off it’s trunk really be a problem?? Sure sounds like another great dragon trunk mission to me?? Can falcon 1.1 lift it or would we need a falcon heavy?
News flash
Laundry mission to ISS places replacement Hubble in space.
Could a telescope be an easy flying distance from ISS? So ISS personnel could hop in their dragon Leo craft, punch up the computer and go change out the batteries and stuff???
Me 🙂
The ISS and Hubble are in very different orbit inclinations. A numbr of years ago it was proposed to send a robot space tug up to Hubble to retrieve it. That idea got shot down by Sean O’Keefe who decided to let the Hubble just deorbit. The next director decided to heck with that and sent a repair mission where they installed handles so that another spacecraft could grasp the Hubble and either deorbit it or pull it someplace else. You have to make sure that any space craft has the delta v to dramatically change orbits. Probably some sort of ion thruster that would gently nudge it over a long period of time. Not suitable for a manned mission. Just my thoughts.
I know you guys are hard core Space X fan boys, but I assume you are just being sarcastic with this thread?
The Delta IV Heavy (and the Titan IV & Titan 34D before it) was purpose built for launching these KH11’s. If NASA decides to use them, no reason to develop a new launcher for just one or two missions when there is already one designed for the job and in current use.
On a different note, if finding funding for completion as science instruments is the hurdle, does it make sense to pull funding from JWST to get one or both of these into operation? If some portion of the JWST cost overrun is due to supporting its standing army longer than anticipated due to the JWST delays, could those personnel and their associated budget be redirected to get these flying in the meantime?
“The Delta IV Heavy (and the Titan IV & Titan 34D before it) was purpose built for launching these KH11’s.”
And has likely already launched one (USA-224).
Jeffrey,
Good point. I was just shooting in the dark with this idea (it was more to have fun with Tinker than anything else). I’m not sure exactly where they would place a scope for a dark energy program, but I assumed it would be further out than Hubble. If it ended up at an unstable point, or if they did them both up to get a calibrated long baseline, station keeping might be required. In all honesty, I conveniently overlooked the contamination and realigning problems because I didn’t have solutions handy to propose.
Steve
Ralphy
Don’t we need a fleet of robot tugs in Leo to clean all the junk anyway??
How much fuel would we need to use chemical rockets to gently do things like take a robot from ISS to Hubble. Then back to ISS and a Leo fuel depot that gets refilled on regulars basis be a reusable falcon Heavy.
Don’t we need a fuel depot in Leo near ISS so we can do more stuff up there!!!
I thought I read here that fuel for ions engines is very rare and very expensive???
Which is better for a robot fleet ion engines or a good old fashion gas station from earth that could later have siblings that gets fuel from the moon??
I don’t know these things?
Just asking???
Probably not as feasible or worthwhile as it sounds.
For cleaning space junk…first off, LEO ain’t the problem. Things in LEO decay naturally due to atmospheric drag. It might take a while, but junk in LEO will eventually deorbit if you just wait long enough. If folks launching new satellites were to add a capability to lower orbit a bit at end-of-life, that’d go a long way to keeping LEO relatively clean.
The real problem is junk in medium, high, and transfer orbits, objects with decay times measured in thousands of years. Cleaning up junk in the Geo and graveyard belt might be slightly more feasible…it usually takes about a Centaur’s worth of fuel to kick something up to GTO, so maybe you’d launch some Centaur-sized tug to hook up to a satellite, give it enough kick to deorbit, then the tug immediately undocks and recircularizes. Again, I’m just assuming something Centaur-sized here…haven’t done the math, just a guess.
Anyway, the Centaur-tug then goes and refuels at a Geo-based depot…but here’s where the problem lies. Depots only store fuel, they don’t generate it; the fuel has to come from somewhere else. To get a Centaur-tug’s worth of fuel to the depot, I’m guessing it’d probably require a launch using a Centaur-ish upper stage, which would then be space junk after the delivery. So to remove a piece of space junk, you’d have to create a piece of space junk…not exactly a winning equation.
As I mentioned before though, this is just a thought experiment…I haven’t crunched the numbers. If someone would like to do the math and prove me wrong, I’d welcome it.
As for placing a fuel depot at the ISS to do work in LEO…the cost of plane changes makes this less useful than it sounds. Orbit plane changes in LEO are prohibitively fuel-intensive – as in, we typically don’t have enough fuel to do plane changes more than fractions of a degree. In most cases, it’s cheaper just to launch a new vehicle into the correct orbital plane. There’s nothing particularly special about the ISS’s orbital plane, other than it contains the ISS. Most of the other things you’d probably consider visiting in LEO are in completely different orbital planes, and thus inaccessible from the ISS.
It is estimated that the new X-37b can do about a 20 degree orbit change and still have enough fuel left to safely come down. Which is awesome but not nearly enough for ISS inclination. Nor nearly big enough. But it may be one of the reasons the spook scopes are being released to the public and have been made obsolete. *And* the X-37b is not a NASA program. Sigh.
Ah, they are on the ground. Well, ok then, that’s different.
My original comment was a bit angrier, as in – If we had soon to be decommissioned Hubble class spy telescopes already in orbit, why did we risk sending a team to repair Hubble, knowing full well it was a mission profile that could not include ISS safe harbor… another 3xx mission had to be on the pad as rescue, etc.
Didn’t they even plan some sort of robot repair at one point?
still though-
To nitpick/bean count a bit, how much did the repair mission and its partner rescue mission prep cost- And how much did the robotic mission planing cost?
vs
Launching a better, more cable new one that had been donated?
Just sayin’. Would have been nice if the kind folks at NRO had spoken up 500 million dollars ago.
This sounds like great news, but why do I get the feeling these are just going to end up being stored next to Triana? It has no instruments, no solar panels, no G&C control, and no budget for systems, I&T, launch, or operations (and whatever other development is missing). I would love for NASA to prove me wrong, though.
Perhaps a bit of horsetrading with ESA would be helpful in this situation.
Without working the costs, which may be prohibitive, the first thing that occured to me was the universities. If a bunch of them joined together, with grads doing one instrument or other component each, they might cover enough of the cost/labor required to make it feasible. NASA would then be left with basically delivery only. It would be the STEM program of the decade. Monitoring the sats would be an on-going student program. Just a thought.
Steve
What are these worth in their current condition? How much to make them launch ready? By that time will SpaceX have a good enough record to do the job? Can FH loft them into a higher useful orbit? Since there are two, can an interferometer be made? (although that might be very expensive and negate any savings)
Here you go, if you want the most perfect mirror ever shaped in human history just call up John Dailey at the National Air & Space Musuem. He’s got a hold of it – this is the one that should have been installed in the Hubble but they screwed it up, didn’t they?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wik…
Now the difficult part — getting them into orbit.
They’re making a rocket in California that could do it
They manufacture a rocket in Alabama that has already done it.
What would happen in reality is that they would ship the thing back to Lockheed in Sunnyvale to turn it into a real space telescope and Lockheed would say, “We have no idea what this is and have no blueprints for it. Now we will charge you to reverse engineer the blueprints and do a ton of testing.” The cost savings would then evaporate.
Time to give Mr Musk a call to hurry the development of the Falcon Heavy. Maybe even to get him and his his friends to donate one freebie launch.
Or, rather than waiting and paying for Musk to develop the FH, you could buy a Delta IV Heavy off the shelf, which has already lifted one of these.
I think people are assuming they won’t have DoD-type money to pay for a Delta launch. So that means waiting for a cheaper option.
Plus, with NASA’s record on space telescopes, FH will be ready before Hubble 2 and 3 are built.
I think people are starting to like the idea of paying falcon heavy prices and just may not want to pay DoD ripoff prices.
Well Hubble weighs a little over 12 tons. The spook scopes are even bigger, right?(not for sure, Im guessing here) Gonna get SpaceX to launch them puppies? Not any time soon I bet. Probably take a Delta 4 launch? I dunno. That’s not cheap. Right now they are purchasing two Delta 4 upper stage rockets, complete kit, engines and everything for two missions to stick on top of the of the SLS rocket. Plus, they are gutting the VAB, putting 10 new movable gantry floors in top to bottom, new cabling fiber optic, etc., and completely refurbishing one of the giant crawlers. Due to the increased crawler load, they may be replacing and deeping the gravel crawlway out to the launch pad. They got a lot on their plate. The J-2x engine is still proceeding but it is on the backburner.
Rebuilt crawlers for those heavy solid rocket boosters wow!!!! I see.
A lot on their plate?? Yup
Wouldn’t falcon heavy be able to fly it sooner and much much cheaper then????
Joe Taxpayer
What ever rocket is available and the cheapest as far as I am concerned. I’m not in love with Delta 4s or any other. Just get the job done and I am sure NASA will do that if it’s cheap enough and depending on how long Hubble will last.
“The J-2x engine is still proceeding but it is on the backburner.”
Well, gee, that was $1.2 billion well spent.
Launch then to the Lagrange point and you’ll have a “web” style telescope.
It’s an interesting idea. These Reconnaissance telescopes are very much like some of the most recent designs for JDEM / WFIRST, which mostly revolved around an off-axis design. I’m not sure how useful the steerable secondary will be since this was typically used with CMOS sensors in a “sweep” motion when performing Earth observations. One would think that would be replaced with a fixed secondary (one less moving part) and redundant gyros for telescope pointing. Further, I think they’d need to consider heavy modifications to the instrument thermal environment and the high-gain antenna for high-bandwidth down link in orbit at L2.
Still, the biggest impediment forward is NASA’s political environment. There’s NO INTEREST in putting up ANY satellite that wasn’t designed, built, and tested through Goddard. And since Goddard still has it’s hands full with JWST, there will be nobody to actually make the necessary modifications for flight. Sad but true.
linmoo:
How ’bout using the sweep function to do a whole sky exoplanet search. Kinda like a super Kepler mission.
tinker
“And since Goddard still has it’s hands full with JWST”
linmoo,
This is supposed to be the start of the age of “commercial” space as far as NASA is concerned, and these are not BEO programs, so let them keep their word and farm it out. There are lots of commercial companies that can do the job. Let them bid on it. Or like I said earlier, let the universities do it; win-win.
Steve
The War Dept. has such space telescopes tech they’re dropping off “obsolete ones” into the Goodwill bin, yet their used castoffs are better than what NASA can get funded, and NASA, now in possession of them, won’t have the resources to get them off the ground for years, if ever.
Tell me something’s not wrong with this picture.
When they configure these telescopes for astronomical use, they should definitely equip them with the necessary laser gear so that the pair can be used as an interferometer. We could position them almost arbitrarily far apart, and get incredible resolution.
OS:
How ’bout Sol/Earth L1 and L2? That’s, what, a little over two million miles apart? Wouldn’t that be a pretty good baseline for an interferometer?
tinker
Since you want line of sight between the telescopes, some combination of L3, L4, and L5 would be best in the Earth-Moon system. Ditto L3, -4, and -5 in Earth-Sun system for very long baselines. Technically challenging though.
Very.
We don’t even have ground based optical telescopes working with long baseline interferometry. Near IR should be working in 5-10 years in more than 1-2 observatories.
Dude, a single mile baseline would make it the largest optical ‘scope ever. Running before you can walk is why we have JWST, SLS…
This is mostly all above my tech grade…but, wow!, yes, two identical telescopes…an interferometer, of course!
Of course NASA doesn’t want to talk about it.
This is going to be prettyly strongly worded, but its extremely clear why NASA is being tight lipped. After all, who is proud of driving their brother’s hand-me-down car, that they’re convinced is a jalopy, even though its a perfectly good model from five years ago?
Things like these – evolved versions of Hubble – are exactly what NASA should have been building and launching. They’re proven, economical, and to a degree mass produced. Instead NASA and its fiefdoms just had to have the $9 billion JWST, which instead of being one of many space science programs, is well on its way to becoming the only space science program. Well I certainly hope it was worth it.
The NRO has it right. They truly do. And this isn’t about funding and military versus civilian. It’s about competence and priorities. These two in-storage spy satellites, based on their description, are KH-11s. The NRO has launched at least 16 of these into orbit since 1982, and apparently built two more. Right now there are at least four in orbit, the most recent launched January 2011 (USA-224), and since the FIA program, the NRO’s own JWST-sized fiasco, was canceled, more are going up.
Because the NRO does what car companies, what semi conductor companies, what aircraft companies do, but apparently NASA refuses to. They had a proven design and they stuck with it, and every time they use it, they improve it slightly. The First KH-11 cost $1.18 billion. The most recent ones, fully integrated with salvaged FIA technology from what is on the net cost $4 billion. That is still less than half the cost of the JWST. And they will launch at least two more, possibly three (if going by their 2000s manifest is any indication) before the JWST gets off the ground.
For some reason the JWST with its limited capabilities and five year unserviceable lifespan exists while a platform launched not once, not twice, but seventeen times (including Hubble) and manufactured at least nineteen times might as well be dead to the space agency.
You want to know why American Space Science is struggling so bad and days like today are an embarassement for civilian space? It’s not the technical nature of the JWST or the funding of the SLS or some other number. It comes down to people. The people at the NRO seem to be serious and practical. They get technology and how incrimentalism simply works.
Then there is NASA and its very serious people, which just had to have the JWST. It couldn’t compromise. It needed the deluxe model. You know the crazy part of it? All the technology and money going into the massive segmented mirror… and it is technology that will likely never be used again, especially at that scale. There will never be a JWST-2. There will never be another telescope with double the mirror segments or something like that. The JWST is a one-off.
But the Hubble/KH-11 design? Good enough to last, by the end of it, over 40 years and by 2020, about two dozen satellites.
I mean this is a reccurring theme. Witness the Mars Science Laboratory, another fiscal abomination. Apparently one nuclear powered rover exploring once site will provide better since than the three or four modernized MER-class rovers to four separate sites that the same money could have bought? Yeah I doubt that. But no, some fiefdom needed their luxury mega-rover. The joke of it is NASA will be lucky if the MSL lasts as long as Opportunity.
It’s episodes like this that make me seriously doubt if there should be a civilian space program in the first place. Today was not a good day for NASA. It was an embarrassing day. It just got a life line from a better-run agency in the form of its scraps.
Just to remind them of that, here’s a proposal: NASA doesn’t get to name their two new Hubble replacements. It doesn’t get to be named after any employee or scientist or anything. They get standard satellite registry numbers like USA-250 and USA-251 (or whatever number they’re at when its launched) and that’s it. THe program shouldn’t even get a name besides something extremely bland. No acronyms and certainly nothing cute. I think it would be an effective way to remind NASA employees day in and day out that their life line came despite them, not because of them. Because between the triple threat of the SLS, the JWST and the MSL, a problem they created by approving projects that never should have been, praise this miracle… and that’s exactly what it is… should be directed to the NRO, not our national civilian space agency.
Oh my, we really need someone like Ed Weiler to explain the difference between the technology required for the HST and that required for the KH-11. For one, HST’s attitude control system programming ensures that the detectors are not pointed at really bright objects, such as the Sun’s albedo (Earth or the Moon). KH-11’s detectors are designed for Earth-viewing. Really, really different detectors, with radically different taskings. Different approaches to attitude control, with HST’s fine guidance sensors and no gaseous products to contaminate the optical qualities of the mirrors.
Yes, the mirror and the structure for the two programs look alike. And, yes, the reason why the HST/KH-11 primary mirrors are similar is that NASA was directed by the Congress to cut HST design and development costs and reduce the mirror size from 3.0 meters to 2.4 meters. And, yes, those members of Congress providing the direction were familiar with the KH-11 program, and thought this “inheritance” would reduce program costs. There’s lots more about this in the published literature. P.S., Lockheed Missiles and Space Co was the structure provider for both programs. However, NASA had to run an open procurement competition for the mirrors, pitting Eastman Kodak against the Perkin-Elmer folks. Unfortunately for NASA, the KH-11 mirror supplier thought they had a lock on winning the competition and didn’t submit as good a proposal as P-E. So, P-E won, and the inheritance assumed from KH-11 didn’t materialize to the assumed extent.
And, there were significant design differences because of the instrumentation and the allowance for HST being serviceable by the Shuttle and its astronauts, thereby allowing for a decades-long service life, with instruments being changed out, as well as gyros, etc. etc.
Sometimes, what looks on the surface like an obvious duplication of effort and a waste of the taxpayer’s money just isn’t…
I don’t think Ed Weiler is required since he always skewed facts toward whatever decision he had already made for his own political reasons – facts/costs be damned. The differences between these systems have to do with instruments – not optics. The real challenge is whether NASA can take an offer of free technology and use it or if they will default to their usual patterns of behavior and add things until the cost is so absurd as to make the decision to move ahead either dead on arrival or the beginning of yet another program doomed at the onset to overrun at the expense of everything else.
“they will default to their usual patterns of behavior and add things until the cost is so absurd“
Keith,
Right on. If I were in charge of this “gift,” I would put a technical team of 4 or 5 people (at most!) on it for 2 or 3 months (at most) and tell them to come back with possibilities and cost estimates. Further, I would warn them that any superfluous inclusions or pet projects incorporated will cost them their jobs. I’d want more than a bloody PP study, but absolutely nothing that wasn’t necessary. Give it the skunk works treatment, with first approximation budgets and schedules before spending another dime. I feel we need an assessment project like this to determine the true worth and possibilities of NRO’s “gift” before anyone can make an informed decision about it. And going to Congress without having done this would be simple suicide.
Steve
Should be done by STSCI mediated set of requirements feeding into a competition for the system of telescopes (2) and instrument packages(4+). The research consortium does the instrument’s, the competition for the system includes the encapsulation and test into packages that are tested off of a earth-based large telescope to the consortium’s guidlines, final checkout and test with space based components is a separate bid from the competitors (it takes specialized resources), and the follow on support contract for logistical support is up for grabs every 3-5 years (thus the standards).
Likely COTS contenders would bid on it across the board as it would increase flight rate.
This would be a model for unmanned/manned “laboratory as service provider” in LEO, halo, lunar, and other solar system opportunities. Including other activities … including possibly lunar surface mining. And military support services …
Corporations could reprise the model as well on their own, given the already operational infrastructure and wealth of proven providers.
Sounds like the military gave NASA a Ferrari with no engine, tires, wiring, interior, computer, etc. Basically a proverbial car up on blocks. The cost/benefit of making one or more of these operational is questionable at best. Then again, so is JWST… Maybe this would be a good project to see if it could be done cheaply with spare parts and a high risk booster (Falcon Heavy)?
Jonathan
Nothing but the best!!!!!!
Titantic complex!!!
We are AMERICANS!!!
We act like such fools!!!!
Frustrated
Joe Public
FOR THE PUBLIC…” JUST MOVE ALONG FOLKS…NOTHING HAPPENING HERE! “
One of the articles mentioned that the field of view of the surplus telescopes is one hundred times that of the HST.
I’m not sure how much useful space astronomy one can do with that. It probably won’t be sending back a lot of “Wow!” moment pictures like HST did.
Considering that NASA will need to design the instruments and build the spacecraft to hold and fly the mirrors, it might just not be worth the resources after all.
“Considering that NASA will need to design the instruments and build the spacecraft to hold and fly the mirrors“
Gonzo,
Why would NASA need to do this? We’re in the commercial age now (the President said so). Farm it out to the best bidder (not necessarily the same as the lowest bidder). Pay only for milestones completed and don’t rush it. Very different from yet another bloated mega-program.
Also note that it is not being proposed to do another Hubble, but rather a dark energy project, a very different scope; no Wow! pictures expected; everything will most likely be false color presentations I would think.
Steve
Whit-.
How about doing a little research before spamming this thread with nonsensical posts.
a. A spacecraft using these mirrors would be too big for a Dragon truck and most likely too big for even a Falcon 9 launch
b. As for building the spacecraft, farming is to the bidders is how NASA does its work. Know what you are talking about before making such comments.
c. Unversities? They don’t have the money, the experience nor the facilities to do such a project.
charliexmurphy,
If I was forced to guess, I’d guess that you’re part of the “the way NASA has always done things” machine. If not, I apologize for making a poor guess; if so, then times are changing and if you don’t change with them you’re going to be lost.
“a. A spacecraft using these mirrors would be too big for a Dragon truck and most likely too big for even a Falcon 9 launch“
The discussed mirror set would fit in the extended trunk (not “truck”). I did my research. And I proposed the possibility of building the rest into the extended trunk, making the trunk the main structural housing. I didn’t propose putting a separately built sat into it. And the Dragon trunk certainly fits on the F9. I had to WAG the mass, but it didn’t seem prohibitive. And I qualify my suggestions (I said, “Without working the costs, which may be prohibitive“) instead of stating my opinions as if they were facts, as you have done.
“b. As for building the spacecraft, farming is to the bidders is how NASA does its work. Know what you are talking about before making such comments.“
Perhaps the difference is subtle and needs a little elaboration. One of the root causes of many complaints about NASA in recent years (from employees, op eds., blogs, books, and more, a general consensus) is that NASA a) uses contract practices that are more expensive than necessary, and b) doesn’t simply give requirements to the contractors and let the contract winner do the job with typical customer review meetings, but rather NASA inserts itself in the job at every turn making things harder, slower, more expensive, etc. (I’m not going to type a detailed description because I’m sure you know what I’m talking about). With NASA, oversight becomes overbearing. If we look at the recent SpaceX COTS2 ISS mission, NASA instead effectively worked with SpaceX providing first rate and timely support for the program and the mission. They did an excellent job (in my opinion) at what they should have been doing. They did not sit looking over the shoulders of the SpaceX people during the entire program, from design to splash down. In short, NASA did not try to micromanage the program. I am suggesting the same idea — as a possibility to evaluate — for a program using these mirrors. NASA would present a RFP with requirements to selected contractors and get back program proposals for evaluation, everything based on progress payments. After contract award, NASA’s participation — as the customer — would be limited to normal customer PDR, CDR, ATP, etc., and otherwise stay out of the way. Wearing its original hat as an industry support agency, NASA may be involved in the program in other ways, but as a support entity, not a program management function.
“c. Unversities? They don’t have the money, the experience nor the facilities to do such a project.“
I seriously proposed this, and I said to spread it out over many universities (so that the cost to any one is not huge). If you do a little research, you’ll discover that universities have been designing, building and operating space science instruments for NASA missions for a very long time, almost as long as NASA has been around. They have had complex, state-of-the-art instruments flying on spacecraft all across the solar system for many years. It’s a win for everybody.
As a general comment, if you consider my ideas to be “nonsensical posts,” that’s your opinion, so please have the tact to state that it’s your opinion instead of making unsupported assertions as if you were the holder of all knowledge. I can live with your personal opinions of my ideas without being bothered, but don’t accuse me of “spamming” this thread or any other; I don’t deserve that. I am a regular here, and I’ve always tried to be polite and considerate of others, unlike your arrogant pronouncement. And I use people’s names when I respond to them, not like the insult you used.
You told me to “Know what you are talking about before making such comments.” I suggest you take your own advice, and also refrain from being insulting in the future.
Steve
Go get him Steve.
My post is not an opinion, but the truth. Just because you a “regular” doesn’t mean your posts are anymore credible. Your explanations did show that you don’t know what you are talking about
1, There is more than just placing a mirror in to a Dragon trunk, extended or not. The Dragon would be a poor host for it. These mirrors need to go in purpose built spacecraft. Spacex hardware is not the new Legos of spaceflight. the Dragon is a cargo and crew carrier and not a generic spacecraft bus.
2. If you do a little research, no university has done a project of this size. This is not an instrument or a small Pegasus or Delta II class spacecraft. This will be billion dolllar project.
3. Learn how NASA manages its various science spacecraft and unmanned launch before applying generalizations that used to describe the HSF side of NASA.
charliexmurphy,
I have no interest in “discussing” this further. You seem to choose only the words you want out of sentences and ignore the rest, which means you can argue with anybody about anything. At this point, I don’t care who’s right and wrong on this topic, I just don’t like your attitude, so I quit and you win. Congratulations.
Steve
LOL. Ditto Steve’s rejoinder! How come I never saw a post from a charliexmurphy before? Must be a JSC employee.
It would be better if NASA would learn how to manage
“… its various science spacecraft and unmanned launch”. Or better yet, if NASA would learn how to manage HSF thru commercialization, and JWST overruns, then we might actually have funds to have science spacecraft and unmanned launches.
One of the articles mentioned that the field of view of the surplus telescopes is one hundred times that of the HST.
Many – would be a space borne version of the Samuel Oschin Telescope.
Interesting information.
Browsing the KH-11 Wikipedia page, I found a couple of photos I’d never seen before. One of them linked to the following site:
http://sites.nationalacadem…
The presentations on there that you’re interested in are “New Developments in Astronomy and Astrophysics” and “Implication of New Developments for the Astronomy and Astrophysics Decadal Survey” in the Past Meeting Presentations section. Enjoy.
Turns out the mirrors are wide angle perfect for infra-red astronomy. Unfortunately, there is no money available…….
http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn….
I’d always seen here and there statements that the Hubble was nothing more or less than a US spy satellite pointed up instead of down. No we finally know for sure. But gee, now there’s no shuttle to haul them up there and repair them it need be. Is there anyone running things in DC? This is several BILLION dollars of perfectly good hardware…
Whatever they do, don’t let the Intrepid Museum have one of them. They’d probably accidentally let it roll off a barge in NY harbor where it would then become the world’s most optically perfect fish reef.
Leo salvage
Jonathan
You said they launched 16 with at least 4 in orbit now, meaning 4 functioning ones?? Do you think there are any dead ones up there as space junk??? Or have they all been splashed!
Sure would have been, or would be nice if we had a big garage up there were these spy satellites could be safely reworked/recycled and put to civilian use after there tour of duty.
24 hubble telescopes looking up??
How much more expensive is it to operate 20 telescopes as opposed to one????
I’m guessing they were all splashed for national security reasons or not economical enough to repair in the old days.
Just looks like more shuttle tank burning to me, which could have and should be turned into opportunities for more future in space commercial businesses/salvage/repair with just a little more forethought. And more reason to create more human and robot LEO capability real soon!!!!!
Seems to me NASA is in the circus business always trying to put on a BIG show to justify it’s existence.
NRO does its job of spying. Reason they repeat a good design.
Doesn’t NASA need to do it’s job of helping to settle space and helping to make space affordable?
Junking 12 plus Hubbles with my tax dollars???
Why?????
Do we plan to junk all twenty four that fly as spies? Or is it possible to use them for science and to help build a space economy???
Imagine Goddard having a workshop in space or an on orbit mission program that jump starts salvage business in Leo coupled with a world program that keeps Leo clean and safe for future growth. I bet lots of people would love to start a space salvage business or work in space on telescopes.
Isn’t a Leo workshop / garage for Leo near ISS like a no brainer.
Isn’t this an example of how space settlement/cheaper Leo launch helps science?
Just another example of working together, not dividing up the budget pie, doing smart things that could us benefit all.
Am I reaching/dreaming/being silly here?
Or just being practical.
Joe Q
Tinker
I did see your recoverable 5 core falcon Heavy at the end of the other thread.
That sure looks like a cheaper big satellite garage/workshop launcher to me 🙂
Cancel SLS
Cancel JWST
Let’s use that money to settle space and study the heavens.
Looking up!!
Didn’t we bring the soviet union to it’s knees by getting them to over spend on their military budget. Didn’t our military spending then hirt us as well?
Hasn’t 911 helped bring us to our knees by tying up our money in two wars for over a decade and Chasing ghosts
Spooks 16 Hubbles, science 1 lolol
Spying doesn’t seem to be very smart way to spend lots of our money.
How much money did east Germany spend on spying in there day????
Asfalcon13
Orbital highways
So how many orbital planes do we fly in around earth????
2? 3? 4? Or hundreds????
Again I don’t know asking?
Shouldn’t we have only a limited number of orbital planes we use so that we could have more capability in each????
Bigelow habitats/outposts/stations/towns/cities in each orbital plane highway.