The Ambitious Robotic Rescue Mission to Restore NASA's Spitzer Telescope
Rhea Space Activity, a private company, has an ambitious plan to revive NASA's Spitzer telescope.
The U.S. Space Force supports the revival of the venerable NASA space telescope.
Startup Rhea Space Activity received a $250,000 grant from the Space Force to explore the resurrection concept.
The complexity of this mission surpasses that of the five space shuttle missions that serviced the Hubble Space Telescope.
Instead of working on the hardware, the robotic spacecraft will conduct a health assessment by flying around Spitzer at a distance of 50 to 100 km.
The spacecraft will then attempt to reestablish communications with the telescope, enabling the transfer of data back to Earth.
The project has garnered substantial support, with the US Space Force, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Blue Sun Enterprises, Lockheed Martin, and John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory backing the idea.
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