NASA and SpaceX have inked a new agreement to investigate the possibility of deploying a commercial crew on a SpaceX Dragon to increase the Hubble Space Telescope’s orbit. If successful, the mission might prolong the telescope’s operating lifetime by up to 20 years.
NASA officials have said that today’s event is not a mission announcement. For the time being, it is just a feasibility study to see if such a mission is feasible given technological and other restrictions. Indeed, one may think that an unmanned space tug would be most suited for an orbital boosting mission, and there are several space firms working on this kind of technology. However, the expedition seems to be SpaceX’s idea, and for some reason, they (and their collaborator, Jared Isaacman’s Polaris Program) want people to participate.
