Death knell for Hubble

Nasa is cancelling all space shuttle servicing missions to the Hubble Space Telescope, a decision that, in effect, will cause the powerful observatory to slowly degrade and eventually become useless, officials said tonight.

John Grunsfeld, Nasa’s chief scientist, said Nasa administrator Sean O’Keefe made the decision to cancel the fifth space shuttle service mission to the Hubble when it became clear there was not enough time to conduct it before the shuttle was retired. The servicing mission was considered essential to enable the orbiting telescope to continue to operate.