http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/health/bal-hs.hubble04mar04,1,7617223.story?coll=bal-health-headlines&ctrack=1&cset=true

Without Hubble, picture is fuzzy

If repair missions end, the loss will be great, astronomers warn

By Frank D. Roylance
Sun Staff

Originally published March 4, 2005

Space scientists are peering into a future without the Hubble telescope, and they don't like what they see.

If NASA lets the renowned observatory die in orbit, they say, it would prematurely slam the shutters on a unique and vital window on the heavens that might not open again for decades.

Other instruments - the orbiting Chandra X-Ray Observatory and the Spitzer Space Telescope, powerful mountaintop observatories like the mighty Keck II in Hawaii and others less well-known - will continue to make important discoveries.

But until a telescope with Hubble's precision and access to the visible light spectrum comes along, "We will definitely have a major loss in capability - an international loss of capability," said Michael G. Hauser, deputy director of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore.

For now, the Hubble Space Telescope is still exploring the origins and evolution of the cosmos. Even if Congress does not restore funding for a space-shuttle servicing mission to keep it alive, the telescope is not expected to fail before 2007.

NASA, meanwhile, says its engineers are devising ways to extend Hubble's useful life by conserving its batteries and learning to aim it with just two gyroscopes - after a third one inevitably fails.

"I'm optimistic," said Anne Kinney, director of NASA's Universe Division. "I think it's totally possible this thing might operate through 2009 or 2010."

Launched in 1990, Hubble has been serviced four times by astronauts who kept its systems alive and replaced original instruments with upgrades that vastly extended its view of the heavens.

In space, "Once you get something working, you're very foolish not to keep it working," said Bruce Margon, associate director for science at the space telescope institute, which manages Hubble's scientific projects.