NASA and industry teams have rolled up their sleeves to explore options that prolong the life of the Hubble Space Telescope. A candidate idea is drawing upon extensive research work on utilizing Earth-controlled space robots to do tasks once assigned to space walking astronauts.

There are two major tasks for extending Hubbles life in orbit: A battery box replacement and giving the telescope a new set of gyroscopes. But installing more astronomical instruments within the orbiting eye on the universe now appears too difficult and time consuming to carry out.

Nevertheless, robotic experts want to test their wares. By doing so, Hubble can also help hone telerobotic skills useful for Moon, Mars, asteroid and beyond exploration.

There is another behind-the-scenes reason for promoting space telerobotic servicing.

Within NASA, there is blossoming interest that the robotic servicing of Hubble, if successful, could help kick-start a new in-space commercial business of tending, repairing, refueling, and nudging about satellites and other space hardware.

"I think its very clear that NASA would like to save Hubble if possible," said David Akin, Director of the University of Marylands Space Systems Laboratory. Flying astronauts to the Hubble doesnt appear to be in the cards, "so it will have to be completely robotic," he said.

"The absolute top priority is clearly preparing [Hubble] for controlled deorbit. But if they can fix the incipient problems to keep it operating well until theyre ready to deorbitthats even better," Akin told SPACE.com.

NASA has already cancelled a June 2006 fixer upper mission to the orbiting eye by a space shuttle crew. Retrieval of Hubble by a follow-up space shuttle crew at the end of the observatorys life is deemed "not permissible", according to Goddard HST disposal mission guidelines.

The decision not to have astronauts visit Hubble again stems from the findings of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) following the loss of crew and space plane February 1, 2003.

The CAIB advised NASA to defer shuttle missions not bound for the International Space Station (ISS) until a shuttle crew can inspect and repair any damage that might occur to their spaceship during ascent into Earth orbit.

The Hubble is flying around the Earth in a different inclination than the ISS. The telescope is predicted to be heading for an uncontrolled reentry into Earths atmosphere no earlier than the year 2013.

NASA policy requires that the massive structure must be safely disposed. Being studied is how to precisely auger the telescope into an uninhabited region of the Earth, or boost the observatory into a high orbit above the planet both schemes making use of an automated rocket stage that attaches to Hubble.

Last month, NASA began in-depth looks at over two dozen submitted ideas in response to a Goddard Request for Information (RFI) on Hubble Space Telescope End of Mission Alternatives.

The entire Goddard Space Flight Center Hubble Space Telescope government/contractor Development Project, together with assistance from other NASA Centers, is looking into robotic servicing and other possibilities.

"The group will review the results of the RFI and technology readiness demonstrations over the next several weeks," said Michael Moore, Program Executive for the Hubble Space Telescope at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. 

"Due to limited remaining battery capability on the HST, contract activities will need to proceed early this summer for any potential servicing mission to be effective," Moore said in a statement provided to SPACE.com.

Ultimately, the final decision regarding a robotic servicing mission lies with the NASA Administrator, however the details of management and execution remain the responsibility of NASAs Office of Space Science, Moore said.

"We have been working on in-space servicing technologies, literally going back almost two decades," said David Lavery, Program Executive for Solar System Exploration at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. He also managed the space agencys former telerobotics technology program for 12 years.

Lavery said that the robotics servicing community has been carrying out "example tasks" over many years to analyze and fully understand the tribulations of robot-tending orbiting spacecraft. Those tasks included how best to robotically service the Hubble Space Telescope, he said.

That research explored what technologies both currently exist and would be required to make a robotic Hubble servicing mission a realistic option, Lavery said. The work has been building toward this sort of opportunity for nearly twenty years, he added.

"The bottom line is that were not starting from ground zero. There is pre-existing work in place that could be utilized for a problem like this," Lavery told SPACE.com .

The University of Marylands Akin has briefed Goddard on his labs Ranger robot and its dexterous manipulators that are capable of working on Hubble. The Ranger itself has already undergone testing against Hubble servicing tasks, he added.

"The same robotic technologies used to repair Hubble will form the basis of the robotic systems which will help humans return to the Moon and reach Mars and will support them in their exploration of new worlds," Akin concluded.