In late October 2026, NASA put out a Request for Information asking commercial companies how they’d either keep the Hubble Space Telescope going longer or bring its mission to a safe close. Responses are due by November 30, 2026. NASA says the 36-year-old telescope is steadily losing altitude because of atmospheric drag, and if nothing changes, it could re-enter sometime in the early-to-mid 2030s.
The agency asked industry for proposals to reboost Hubble, service or upgrade it, or handle a controlled deorbit. Any plan has to show, in concrete terms, how it would rendezvous with Hubble and capture it, raise the telescope to at least 373 miles (600 km), and spell out the full mission setup: spacecraft, launch plan, operations, and crew, if crew is part of the concept. That all comes straight from NASA’s Request for Information.
NASA is looking outside the agency for a pretty obvious reason. The Space Shuttle is gone, budgets are tighter than they used to be, and inflation has eaten into Hubble operations. At the same time, NASA officials say commercial in-space servicing has been getting better and may offer a cheaper way forward. If you care about Hubble, this deserves attention. The telescope is still in heavy use, it still produces ultraviolet and visible-light science that the James Webb Space Telescope doesn’t fully replace, and the most likely follow-on mission isn’t expected until the 2040s.
There’s also some recent history here. A 2022 SpaceX-Polaris concept was judged too risky by NASA, and even with progress from companies such as Northrop Grumman, Astroscale, and Momentus, these missions are still hard. Rendezvous, capture, servicing, orbit-raising, all of it. Companies have until November 30, 2026 to get their responses to NASA.
Author: Chema Carvajal Sarabia
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