The Hubble Space Telescope is slowly slipping toward Earth, and a new analysis suggests its orbit could decay fast enough to trigger an uncontrolled reentry as early as 2028 if no one intervenes. Engineers have long known that atmospheric drag would eventually claim the observatory, but the latest projections recast the issue as a near-term safety and policy test, not a distant hypothetical. The question is no longer whether Hubble will fall, but how prepared the world is to manage that fall or prevent it.
Behind the drama of a possible crash lies a quieter reality: Hubble is still doing valuable science and was originally expected to keep working into the 2030s. The telescope has already orbited Earth for more than three decades and transformed astronomy, yet its future now hinges on orbital mechanics, risk thresholds and whether any rescue or reboost mission can be mounted in time.
What the new orbit decay study actually found
NASA commissioned an independent technical review of Hubble’s trajectory, the Hubble Space Telescope, to quantify how quickly drag is shrinking the telescope’s path around Earth. That work, along with follow-on analyses, concludes that the observatory’s altitude is dropping steadily and that its eventual reentry is not centuries away but likely within the next two decades. One branch of the modeling points to a possible reentry window beginning around 2028, which is why engineers now describe Hubble as sitting in a slow-motion spiral rather than a stable perch.
Several public explainers have translated the technical findings into plain language, warning that Hubble telescope could sooner than many people assumed. These summaries stress that the exact year depends on solar activity, which puffs up the upper atmosphere and increases drag, but they share a common message: the margin for inaction is shrinking. The study did not claim a guaranteed 2028 reentry, yet it put that date on the table as a realistic early scenario if conditions line up in the most pessimistic way.
From 335 miles up to a dangerous descent
When Hubble was launched, it was placed about 335 miles above Earth, high enough to limit drag but low enough for the Space Shuttle to reach for servicing missions. That compromise worked for decades, especially as astronauts periodically boosted the orbit while installing new instruments and gyroscopes. Since the final shuttle visit, however, the telescope has been slowly sinking with no way to climb back, and each kilometer lost increases the rate of decay.
Analysts who track the altitude now warn that the descent has accelerated enough that a reentry in the late 2020s is plausible. One detailed overview notes that NASA hopes that, yet it also concedes that atmospheric drag could force an earlier end. That tension between scientific ambition and orbital reality defines the current debate: astronomers want another decade of data, while safety experts are running scenarios in which gravity and air resistance win much sooner.
Why some experts now talk about 2028
The most attention-grabbing date in the recent coverage is 2028, flagged in part through comments by specialists who have studied Hubble’s trajectory in detail. One analysis recounts how Dr John Grunsfeld, a former astronaut and retired associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, pointed to the late 2020s as a period of heightened concern. His view aligns with the independent decay study’s lower bound and reflects a conservative reading of how quickly solar activity could thicken the upper atmosphere.
Other modeling exercises cluster around slightly later dates, often highlighting 2029 as a risk year and extending the window into the early 2030s. One summary notes that, according to tracking work shared by Jeff Foust, the risk envelope starts to rise sharply around that time. Taken together, the studies do not agree on a single year, but they converge on a clear message: by the end of this decade, an uncontrolled reentry becomes a live possibility unless the orbit is raised or the spacecraft is guided down.
How dangerous would an uncontrolled Hubble reentry be
Hubble is large, heavy and built from materials that are not guaranteed to burn up completely, which is why reentry scenarios draw serious attention. A recent risk assessment cited in one overview states that Though the risks are still low and relatively distant, they are technically unacceptable by NASA standards if the spacecraft is allowed to fall wherever physics dictates. That language reflects internal thresholds for how much casualty risk the agency is willing to accept for uncontrolled reentries of large objects.
One widely discussed scenario highlights what could happen if the orbit decayed in such a way that debris fell over a dense region. A technical summary notes that Hubble Space Telescope could, in a worst-case trajectory, break up over Earth in a path that passes near Hong Kong or Singapore, although the probability of that exact track is small. The point of such examples is not to predict a specific city impact but to illustrate why planners insist on either a controlled deorbit into the ocean or an orbital boost that postpones the problem for many years.
Reboost, private missions and the politics of rescue
Faced with these projections, NASA has already started to explore options to raise Hubble’s orbit and extend its life. The agency announced that NASA and SpaceX an agreement to study whether a commercial spacecraft could rendezvous with Hubble and perform a reboost. Engineers have floated the idea that such a mission could add 15 to 20 years of operational life, pushing any reentry concerns well past 2040 and buying time for new observatories to take over.
The commercial angle is not just theoretical. A separate report notes that Isaacman, a billionaire who chartered the first fully commercial flight to low Earth orbit in 2021, is in training to lead three more missions and has publicly discussed the idea of servicing Hubble. That possibility feeds into a broader conversation about whether private crews should take on what used to be a purely governmental role, and how much risk and cost taxpayers are willing to accept to preserve an aging but still productive observatory.
