Private company plans daring mission to save NASA's space telescopes.
Northrop Grumman has been exploring a private servicing mission for NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory, which launched in 1999 to study high-energy events in the universe. The proposed mission would send a space tug to Chandra, which is in a highly elliptical orbit, to extend its life by decades. The mission would allow Chandra to continue scrutinizing the universe in X-ray wavelengths and work with the recently launched James Webb Space Telescope. Private companies are also investigating the possibility of servicing NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and Spitzer Space Telescope.