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porsupah | 4 years ago

They did:

"Unlike Hubble, Webb isn't designed to be fixed by astronauts. But it can be refueled robotically. Zurbuchen says that 'once this telescope is deployed, I'm going to put all the effort towards developing that technology, and so within the 10-year lifespan, we can go refuel it'"

https://nitter.42l.fr/marinakoren/status/1474367236244750345...

https://nitter.42l.fr/Dr_ThomasZ/status/1474398711505580032#...

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WalterBright|4 years ago

The astronauts had some serious, unexpected difficulties fixing the Hubble in orbit, and had to improvise. I'm skeptical that blasting a fuel coupling into space, and then trying to figure out how to connect it to a robot, will end well.

dev_tty01|4 years ago

I don't know. If the fuel coupling design is compatible with robotic access, it might be doable. That would seem easier than the dozens of repairs that astronauts did with Hubble. I assume we learned a lot with the Hubble servicing missions, some of which will be applicable to robotic work. The full list of Hubble service/repairs is quite remarkable if anyone is interested:

https://hubblesite.org/mission-and-telescope/servicing-missi...

ThinkBeat|4 years ago

awesome :) Thank you.