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In 2022, billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman announced that he was willing to foot the bill for a daring rescue mission<\/a> to fix NASA\u2019s aging Hubble Space Telescope.<\/p>\n Isaacman, who would go on to become the first private astronaut to perform a spacewalk, said at the time that he was giddy with excitement over the \u201cpossibility of extending the life and capabilities of one of our greatest explorers.\u201d<\/p>\n NASA officials were less impressed with the plan, which would involve a heavily modified SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft docking with the Hubble and boosting its orbit. In 2024, they dealt the mission a fatal blow, arguing<\/a> that the risks outweighed the \u201clong-term science return<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI acknowledge this is not my telescope to touch and a lot of time has passed from the study till now,\u201d Isaacman tweeted<\/a> in response. \u201cGovernment priorities change, budgets become tight, regardless of who is funding the mission, it does require contributions of resources from a lot of parties to ensure success.\u201d<\/p>\n Roughly two years and a massive twist later \u2014 let\u2019s just say he got a massive push into the role from SpaceX CEO Elon Musk \u2014 Isaacman is now the head of NASA.<\/p>\n And now that he\u2019s pulling the strings, Isaacman has been eager to try out his plan for saving an endangered space telescope. In June, just over six months after he was sworn in, news emerged that NASA had signed a contract with Katalyst Space Technologies<\/a> to launch an autonomous robotic spacecraft, dubbed \u201cLINK.\u201d The plan was to have it rendezvous with the agency\u2019s 21-year-old Swift observatory and give it a much-needed push back into a stable orbit \u2014 efforts closely echoing Isaacman\u2019s abandoned plans to help prolong the Hubble\u2019s life.<\/p>\n Katalyst officials conceded that it was a \u201chigh risk high reward<\/a>\u201d attempt that came together in record time. And it didn\u2019t take long for the mission to spiral into crisis<\/a> \u2014 quite literally. The spacecraft started tumbling uncontrolled after launch, forcing NASA to abandon the mission.<\/p>\n As a result, the Swift observatory is doomed to burn up in the Earth\u2019s atmosphere later this year.<\/p>\n The saga highlights a dramatic change in how NASA operates, from a slow and contemplative approach that critics say leads to massive budget overruns and delays to a far more nimble \u2014 yet seemingly less deliberate \u2014 strategy under Isaacman\u2019s leadership.<\/p>\n In many ways, it\u2019s echoing the philosophy of the NASA administrator\u2019s long-term business partner SpaceX, a firm known for its iterative \u2014 and explosive \u2014 \u201cfly, fail, fix<\/a>\u201d design process.<\/p>\n \u201cNASA should be willing to move quickly and take smart risks when the potential return is worth it, and that is exactly what we did with this mission,\u201d Isaacman said in a statement following the LINK mission failure. \u201cThis is not the outcome we were working toward, but it does not change why this mission was worth attempting.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe team moved with extraordinary speed to give Swift a chance to carry out more science while advancing capabilities America will need for satellite servicing in the future,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, instead of doubling down on pushing the frontiers of space science, NASA has pushed hard to gut the agency\u2019s science budget for several years<\/a> now.<\/p>\n Fortunately, NASA\u2019s flagship Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, long seen as the next \u201cgreat\u201d observatory, has evaded those efforts.<\/p>\n The telescope is still progressing toward a scheduled August 30 launch. Its tasks include researching dark energy, exoplanets, and the physics of distant stars in ways that even NASA\u2019s groundbreaking James Webb Space Telescope isn\u2019t capable of<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Roman telescope has a mission lifetime of approximately five years<\/a>. Hopefully, NASA has thought of contingency plans in case it\u2019s ever in need of repairs or a boost to a higher orbit many years from now.<\/p>\n