The Hubble Space Telescope "will plunge back into the atmosphere in the early-to-mid-2030s," reports Ars Technica. So now NASA has released a Request For Information (RFI) "asking commercial companies for ideas on how to reboost, service, or a controlled disposal of Hubble." Specifically, NASA is looking for information about companies' current and near-term capabilities for capturing Hubble and boosting it to an altitude of at least 373 miles (600 km), enhancing the telescope's performance, or guiding Hubble to a controlled reentry. "The requirement includes that the boost and/or servicing mission must not harm the HST and that this mission is expected to occur by 2032," NASA wrote in the RFI. The contractor would be responsible for providing the launch vehicle, servicing spacecraft, mission operations, and "crew if applicable." NASA is not committing to buying a Hubble rescue mission, but officials want to know who might be interested in mounting such a mission, how much it would cost, and which companies would have a realistic shot at reaching Hubble before it falls out of orbit and burns up on reentry. Orbital dynamicists currently predict that it will likely happen in 2033 or 2034 without intervention, but reentry forecasts can change based on solar activity... A reboost to NASA's requirement of 373 miles (600 km) would likely keep Hubble in orbit for at least 25 more years. "NASA last raised the orbit of Hubble in 2002," the article points out, "when the Space Shuttle Columbia visited the observatory for a servicing mission." The final shuttle servicing flight in 2009 did not reboost the telescope's orbit, and with the retirement of the shuttle fleet two years later, Hubble has steadily lost altitude with no way to stave off eventual destruction... NASA's newer flagship observatories, sometimes described as successors to Hubble, are not actually one-for-one replacements. Hubble is tuned to observe the Universe in visible and ultraviolet light, while the Webb and Roman telescopes peer deeper into the infrared Universe. Astronomers will likely have to wait for the launch of NASA's Habitable Worlds Observatory in the 2040s for an improvement on Hubble's visible and ultraviolet vision.

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"Margaret Hamilton, the groundbreaking researcher who helped create the field of software engineering and whose code helped land NASA's Apollo astronauts on the moon to win the 20th century space race, has died," writes longtime Slashdot reader Veeru. "She was 90." MIT News reports: A computing pioneer who authored over 130 publications, Hamilton helped to establish software engineering as a dedicated discipline. She worked at MIT from 1959 until the mid-1970s, after which she became a successful computing entrepreneur and CEO. Her life's work was recognized with many awards and honors, including the 2016 Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama, whose citation noted: "Hamilton defined new forms of software engineering and helped launch an industry that would forever change human history. Her software architecture led to giant leaps for humankind, writing the code that helped America set foot on the moon." "To say Margaret Hamilton was a pioneer -- to say she was ahead of her time -- would be a dramatic understatement. She was a software engineer at a time when that field was in its infancy, and she not only developed advanced code herself but also led a team in using that nascent technology to develop one of the most complex systems humanity had ever achieved," says Olivier de Weck, the Apollo Program Professor and interim head of the MIT Department Aeronautics and Astronautics. "The Apollo program still stands as one of our greatest testaments to the power of collaboration, ingenuity, and engineering, and Margaret Hamilton was a fundamental contributor to that program's success. And for her that was just the beginning! She went on to become an entrepreneur and remained on the cutting edge of systems software throughout an extraordinary career, while acting as an advocate, mentor, and inspiration to millions."

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