Elon Musk Says There Is A Need For A Space Telescope With 'Far Larger Aperture' Than Hubble

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk on Monday said there is a need for a new visible spectrum space telescope to replace or assist the Hubble space telescope.

What Happened: “Hubble is cool, but there needs to be a new visible spectrum space telescope with far larger aperture,” Musk said on social media platform X, formerly Twitter.

The Hubble space telescope was launched to low-Earth orbit in 1990. Since then it has been orbiting Earth at an altitude of about 340 miles, capturing images. The Hubble has been serviced multiple times on orbit since, the latest of which was in 2009. It is now expected to last until 2030-2040.

Why It Matters: Shift4 Payments CEO and commercial astronaut Jared Isaacman previously proposed to service the telescope as part of his human spaceflight program called Polaris. The program is expected to embark on three human spaceflight missions with SpaceX.

However, NASA has yet to greenlight the proposal for Hubble to be serviced on a Polaris mission, National Public Radio (NPR) reported in May.

Polaris Dawn, the first of up to three human spaceflight missions planned under the Polaris program, was launched last week by a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle. During the five-day mission, the crew, onboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, touched a maximum altitude of over 870 miles and conducted the first-ever commercial spacewalk on Thursday.

The successful spacewalk and demonstration of the ability to touch high altitudes on the Polaris Dawn mission might help alleviate NASA’s concerns about the ability to service the Hubble telescope with a future Polaris mission using SpaceX hardware.

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Photo courtesy: NASA