The Hubble was designed purely as a telescope; the only docking every needed 
was supposed to be via the space shuttle's robotic arm. It consists of a 
little 'peg' on the telescope that is grabbed by the wire system at the very 
tip of the shuttle's arm. ISS is supposed to get a canadian-built (same as 
the shuttle) robotic arm with two 'gripping' ends, so it could creep around 
the ISS like a caterpillar, but I don't think it's ready yet.
And the 'dirtyness' of space surrounding the ISS is a big issue. Which is 
why they didn't bother docking Hubble to the ISS (they've had 4 hubble 
missions, combining them with ISS missions would have been a bonus), or even 
putting a telescope on the ISS for that matter.

Alex


From: "Peter L. Peres" <plp@actcom.co.il>
Reply-To: "Microcontroller discussion list - Public." 
<piclist@mit.edu>
To: "Microcontroller discussion list - Public." 
<piclist@mit.edu>
Subject: RE: [OT] Hubble servicing cost $1billion?
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2005 20:20:58 +0200 (IST)



On Thu, 3 Feb 2005, Ale[x] Garbino wrote:

>They try to keep Hubble in a "clean" orbit. The ISS orbit is
>surrounded by junk, gases, etc. And the risk of taking out the
>station and/or Hubble is high (these things can do orbit
>corrections; they aren't built with thrusters all over like the
>shuttle/apollo/gemini and all the stuff that was planned on
>docking/small precise maneouvers is).
>And moving a large structure like the ISS is very difficult (think
>of the leverage caused by multi-ton modules being tugged at right
>angles to each other... 0g, not 0 inertia!!).

It is not reasonable to move the heavy space station to the light Hubble. 
The other way aruond might work, using f.ex. a Progress ship docked to the 
Hubble (can anything dock to it ?). (same as used to boost the ISS).

Peter
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