Hubble-class spy satellites donated to NASA.

[Robert Clark]

Haven't seen this discussed on the forum yet:

 

 

NASA gets two military spy telescopes for astronomy.

By Joel Achenbach, Published: June 4

The announcement Monday raised the obvious question of why the

intelligence agency would no longer want, or need, two Hubble-class

telescopes. A spokeswoman, Loretta DeSio, provided information

sparingly.

"They no longer possessed intelligence-collection uses," she said of

the telescopes.

http://www.washingto...6UDV_story.html

 

 

Blog post on using the new telescopes for planetary defense, asteroid prospecting, and Mars orbiter satellites:

 

 

Low cost development and applications of the new NRO donated telescopes.

http://exoscientist....plications.html

 

 

Bob Clark

Edited June 13, 2012 by Robert Clark

[Enthalpy]

I had wondered if the initial optical aberration of Hubble came from its Keyhole (spy satellite) parent design, which has a 250km observation distance. I had tried to put some figures on the resulting aberration if using that optics at infinity observation distance and got a significant aberration...

 

So it could well be that the donated telescopes have that same aberration as initially Hubble had. Time to re-use Hubble's early correction software maybe? As an intervention in orbit must be too costly in the present context.