this post was submitted on 03 Dec 2023
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I mean, Elon did put his Tesla into orbit out to Mars. A PR boost to save one of the most beloved science projects sounds like a winner after the crap he's been pulling with x.com fka twitter.
Not sure his rockets have the ability to bring back a large and heavy load. Currently the landing of the first stage requires an empty vessel and the second stage certainly does not have the capability. He would need to engineer a brand new rocket to do just this.
The starliner configuration is designed to take 100 people into leo and back. I think that alone could be close to the 12 tons that Hubble weighs. It'll be interesting to see capabilities when the variants are produced, specifically the cargo version for me.
It would be great if/when that happens, but it's a few years off the Elon deadline ATM, and doesn't look close to operation soon
I think the current mission being explored is docking a dragon trunk and boosting it and servicing it. That could buy us enough time until starship cargo is ready. STS-125 added a docking port for capture, which is going to be used by a satellite to deorbit if it comes time to do that.