Poilievre will do 'anything to win,' must condemn Alex Jones endorsement: Trudeau
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is ramping up his attacks on Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre as he promotes his government's federal budget.
Officials at NASA have signed a Space Act Agreement with SpaceX to investigate the benefits and risks of having a private mission provide service to NASA's nearly 33-year-old Hubble Space Telescope, boosting it to a higher orbit to extend its life, the space agency announced Thursday.
"Hubble is amazingly successful. ... It's doing great science as we speak," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, during a news conference.
But SpaceX approached the space agency a few months ago with the idea, he said, and the team at NASA is now planning to assess how a private mission might help "boost" and maintain the telescope.
Zurbuchen added that it is not yet certain whether or not such a mission could be carried out, and the goal of the agreement is just to explore the technical feasibility of the idea.
Jessica Jensen, vice president of customer operations and integration at SpaceX, said the private aerospace company "has a lot of experience docking (spacecraft) with the International Space Station."
SpaceX wants to use that knowledge as a foundation and find out whether it's possible to carry out a similar docking maneuver with the Hubble telescope, Jensen said.
It could be done at "no cost to the government," according to a NASA news release. The Space Act Agreement itself will not involve any exchange of funds, according to the release.
Launched in 1990, the space observatory has had several servicing missions during NASA's space shuttle era, with the last mission carried out in 2009. But the space agency retired the space shuttle in 2011, and no spacecraft has been back since.
SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft missions have already taken over much of the work that the space shuttle program used to carry out, including ferrying astronauts to and from the ISS.
The effort to send a private mission to Hubble could be a part of a previously announced, privately funded SpaceX program called Polaris. That program is the brainchild of Jared Isaacman, the billionaire CEO of payments platform Shift4, who first gained international attention when he paid the company to take himself and three guests on a three-day trip to orbit Earth aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule last year.
He announced the Polaris program in February, and at the time he said the program would encompass at least three missions with SpaceX.
The first flight in the program, called Polaris Dawn, is expected to last up to five days. It will include a crew of Isaacman and three other people, who will ride aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule to the Van Allen radiation belt, which has an inner band that stretches from about 400 to 6,000 miles (644 to 9,656 kilometres) above Earth. It's scheduled to take off no earlier than March 2023.
The second Polaris mission could be a great candidate for sending a SpaceX capsule to Hubble, Isaacman said at Thursday's news conference.
It's not yet clear whether an autonomous, uncrewed spacecraft could carry out a Hubble service mission instead of requiring a crew on board, according to Jensen.
Zurbuchen added that is all part of what SpaceX and NASA will explore as part of this Space Act Agreement.
"We're looking at crazy ideas all the time," he said. "That's what we're supposed to do."
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is ramping up his attacks on Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre as he promotes his government's federal budget.
A Winnipeg man said a single date gone wrong led to years of criminal harassment, false arrests, stress and depression.
New video evidence uncovered by CNN significantly undermines two Pentagon investigations into an ISIS-K suicide attack outside Kabul airport, during the American withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.
A Toronto couple are speaking out about their 'extremely dangerous' experience on board a sinking tour boat in the Dominican Republic last week.
There are 63 wildfires burning in Alberta's forest protection area as of Wednesday morning and seven mutual aid fires, including one in the Municipal District of Peace.
Arrests have been made after five men were captured on video rampaging through a jewelry store in Toronto, waving weapons and smashing glass display cases.
A Polish pilot proposed to his flight attendant girlfriend during a flight from Warsaw to Krakow, and she said yes.
The federal government has added $36.4 million to a program designed to support people who have been seriously injured or killed by vaccines since the end of 2020.
The RCMP says a former SNC-Lavalin executive has been sentenced to three and a half years in prison in connection with a bribery scheme for a bridge repair contract in Montreal.
A property tax bill is perplexing a small townhouse community in Fergus, Ont.
When identical twin sisters Kim and Michelle Krezonoski were invited to compete against some of the world’s most elite female runners at last week’s Boston Marathon, they were in disbelief.
The giant stone statues guarding the Lions Gate Bridge have been dressed in custom Vancouver Canucks jerseys as the NHL playoffs get underway.
A local Oilers fan is hoping to see his team cut through the postseason, so he can cut his hair.
A family from Laval, Que. is looking for answers... and their father's body. He died on vacation in Cuba and authorities sent someone else's body back to Canada.
A former educational assistant is calling attention to the rising violence in Alberta's classrooms.
The federal government says its plan to increase taxes on capital gains is aimed at wealthy Canadians to achieve “tax fairness.”
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.
Kevin the cat has been reunited with his family after enduring a harrowing three-day ordeal while lost at Toronto Pearson International Airport earlier this week.