Re:When Hubble stared at nothing for 100 hours (2015)
by vlasev on Saturday July 25, 2020 @06:48PM
(#23952990)
Hubble points via gyroscopes, not thrusters! But they are slow, so that's part of why you need to schedule things well. YouTube video explaining how it points: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEZI9DxIQss
Also, I don't think it needs to change orbital parameters at all for its operation. Station-keeping yea, but I don't think it needs to burn more fuel because of pointing at things.
For the hubble to point at something, I'd imagine it needed to station-keep and burn some hydrazine.
If you did infinite numbers of 5-10 min studies, you'd burn right out of the fuel store of a spacecraft before you'd get anything done.
From what I hear, hubble telescope times are scoped out, planned out a year or several years in advance - the telescopes and scientific instruments need to be programmed, the spacecraft needed to be moved/pivoted to aim at the right part of space, communications times needs to be booked with receivers/ground stations across the entire Deep Space Network so you can receive the data.
It's nontrivial - if you booked 5-10 min at a time you'd have wasted your most precious resource.
https://eyes.nasa.gov/dsn/dsn.html