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Discussion of Future Space Telescopes
- Thread starter Grendal
- Start date
This was brought up in EA/Tim Dodd's recent webcast - How about a space born telescope that can be "rented" by the astronomical community that SpaceX puts up. You buy access to the telescope and connect through the internet. SpaceX could do a more sophisticated official space telescope for scientists to do something similar with. If it's popular and successful then they can put up more of them. SpaceX could put them up on one of these smallsat launches like Transporter 1 or with a Starlink launch. If they can build thousands of Starlink satellites then they should be able to pull off a decent space telescope that isn't as elaborate as Hubble or JWST.
Geez, you add it into one the "entertainment" pieces in a Tesla. Where you can access the "Space Telescope" visuals that someone else is controlling. How cool would that be? Along the lines of driving on Mars but with a realtime space element.
I had read somewhere, could not find a link though, about attaching a high resolution camera to a Dragon 2 capsule to document the ISS while docked. How about a few high resolution telescopes in the trunk? Let astronomers sign up for access. Not quite a Hubble but could be much better a ground based telescope.
NB. Not an astronomer or played one on TV.
This is SpaceX and Tesla. These people are innovators. Give them the problem to solve and I'd bet they could could come up with a simple inexpensive solution.
James Webb, while being very cool if they can pull it off, is the SLS of Space Telescopes.
No doubt they can come up with a less expensive solution than a state-run project, and certainly they can come up with an inexpensive "low" performing solution (relative to the mega telescopes), but its hard to get around the fact that a big, high resolution, high reliability, space facing telescope is going to still be mad expensive. Things like crazy accurate metering of the optical geometry, crazy high pointing precision, crazy high pointing stability, crazy high internal isolation (vibrations, thermals, RF emissions), resolution that demands physically massive optical geometry, etc...
Combine that with a pretty small demand and certainly pretty small revenue, and it really seems unlikely SpaceX will get in the game of space facing observation.
More likely from SpaceX IMHO would be some earth facing observation constellation. Its been a tough nut to crack and there's plenty of players that have been trying to do just that (rather unsuccessfully) for years, so maybe there isn't actually huge There There, but if anyone can materially reduce capex vs service, its SpaceX. There's a theoretical world of all manner of analytics out there (beyond just "selling pictures"), and to-date most companies trying to capitalize on that kind of service have been forced--whether they like it or not--on building out their own infrastructure. So...they end up allocating resources to designing, building, and launching satellites, which really just ends up being a distraction to the core revenue generator of processing data and selling analytics....helping that farmer identify the hot and cold spots of the field, predicting wildfire spread based on foliage and moisture content, optimizing shipping traffic around ports, etc...
While its hard to imagine SpaceX getting into that analytics business (remember that Google bought Skybox at $500M and then sold them a few years later to Planet at a significant loss because they couldn't figure out how to make the right amount of money...) one could imagine SpaceX selling a data stream to companies that have some niche analysis idea. The flip side of that of course is that building out that kind of product could become a distraction for SpaceX, not to mention the total revenue from that product--especially right now--might not be bigly enough to warrant the diverted/additional resources.
SpaceX is all about leveraging their launch business, which is what Starlink is. I could maybe see them leveraging their now newly created high volume satellite manufacturing business (which is also what Starlink is). So, to your point, only high volume satellites. Certainly not space telescopes. Or at least not the ones like Webb. Earth observation might work. Military communications and GPS-like satellites might also fit the bill.
And they only need to exceed the resolution of an average earth based telescope to satisfy much of the complaints about StarLink clouding the sky...
JWST may finally launch in a few months. Elon recently mentioned that SpaceX might send up some advanced inexpensive space telescopes.
Not sure.... I watched an edited recap of the interview, and didn't hear anything about that.
And SpaceX will very likely launch the next big space telescope.
www.teslarati.com
SpaceX's Falcon Heavy likely to launch NASA telescope after ULA skips competition
On the heels of what will likely be NASA’s most significant telescope launch for at least a decade, the space agency appears to be about to select the launch provider for its next most expensive space telescope – a contract that SpaceX seems all but guaranteed to win. Tory Bruno, CEO of the...
www.teslarati.com
Launch of this is awarded to SpaceX's Falcon Heavy.
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NASA prepares next steps in development of future large space telescope - SpaceNews
NASA is preparing to move into the next stage of planning for a future large space telescope that may take two decades to launch.
spacenews.com
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