NASA issued a Request for Information on Oct. 29 to learn about industry capabilities for in-space servicing and maintenance aimed at the Hubble Space Telescope. The agency wants to assess whether a commercial mission could support the observatory, which has been in operation for more than three decades and whose continued life increasingly depends on external solutions.

Hubble was designed specifically to be serviced in space: NASA's space shuttles conducted five servicing missions between 1993 and 2009 that upgraded its instruments and replaced degraded components. Since the shuttle fleet was retired in 2011, the telescope has had no possibility of crewed repair, and the only option considered so far has been a controlled re-entry once its operational capacity is exhausted.

The Request for Information seeks proposals from companies capable of docking with the telescope, carrying out maintenance maneuvers or even boosting its orbit to counteract the orbital decay the observatory is experiencing. NASA is not committing to a specific contract: the preliminary consultation will inform future decisions on whether to proceed with a servicing mission and with what technical profile.

The interest in extending Hubble's life reflects its continued role as a key tool for astrophysics, complementing observations from the James Webb Space Telescope in areas such as the measurement of the Hubble constant H₀, supernova surveys and the study of exoplanet atmospheres. The agency will indicate in later stages whether it moves toward a formal tender, depending on the capabilities revealed by this round of consultations.