The Hubble Space Telescope is, as Space.com puts it, operating well. It's the orbit that's the trouble. Atmospheric drag keeps pulling it lower, it has no propulsion system of its own, and NASA has now started asking who might be able to help.
Space.com reports that the agency issued a request for information on October 29 for "in-space servicing" capabilities. Xarmo couldn't check the request itself directly, so the details here are as reported by Space.com and The Register. NASA has also published a short announcement of its own.
What NASA is asking
The Register describes three kinds of mission: a vehicle that grapples Hubble for a controlled re-entry and disposal, something that boosts the telescope to at least 600 km, or a mission to "enhance its ongoing performance and increase its resilience and expected on-orbit lifetime".
This is the start of a conversation, not a mission. The Register stresses that NASA is looking for information and comment, that this isn't a request for proposals, and that there is no indication of what the agency expects to pay.
The timetable
Space.com says Hubble will naturally enter the atmosphere in 2033 or 2034, so any servicing would have to happen in 2032. The Register gives the odds behind that: NASA reckons there is a 10 percent chance of re-entry by September 2032, rising to 50 percent by December 2033. Without intervention that re-entry would be uncontrolled, and The Register says Hubble is massive enough that there is a remote chance of harm on the ground.
Demand for the telescope hasn't faded with age. Space.com says its observations have led to at least 23,000 scientific papers, and quotes NASA saying in September that "astronomers request about seven times as much observing time as is available each year". The Register adds that no replacement is expected before the 2040s.
There is one piece of good fortune. The Register notes that the last shuttle servicing mission, STS-125 in 2009, fitted a soft-capture mechanism to Hubble, which should make docking easier than the grappling planned for Swift.
The same idea, a different answer
The person now running NASA has history here. In 2022, Space.com reports, entrepreneur Jared Isaacman proposed a Hubble servicing mission using SpaceX hardware, and NASA declined, citing possible risks to the healthy observatory.
Isaacman became NASA administrator in December 2025. In an October 30 agency statement, he said NASA should "be looking at every reasonable opportunity to keep it delivering for as long as possible", especially if that costs less than launching another mission, according to Space.com. On X, Space.com notes, he said it was "still worth exploring the options", adding: "Still worth the effort — Hubble deserves it."
The cautionary tale
There's a recent example of how hard this is. Space.com reports that NASA worked with Katalyst Space Technologies this year on a $30 million mission to boost the orbit of the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, also falling back to Earth because of drag. Katalyst's LINK spacecraft launched successfully, but control issues stopped it from meeting up with Swift. Space.com expected Swift to re-enter the atmosphere on November 4, after 22 years of operations.
Finn's take: There's something quietly fitting about the world's most famous telescope ending up in a request for information. NASA is right to ask, and right to include the option of a safe way down, because 2032 will come around whether or not anyone answers. Swift is a useful reminder that reaching an old observatory is much harder than launching towards one. The replies won't save Hubble, but they will tell us whether anyone thinks they can.
Reporting notes
