I think with the Hubble it was one of those deals of since we are up here we might as well replace these also.
Super disappointing. It sounds like the repair is unlikely, but let's hope. That said, unless I'm mistaken, there is still a lot of info that is still being analyzed from what was already gathered. For the time it did work, it was a huge leap in our understanding of the cosmos. It gave us such a promising glimpse that it is hard to understand how the public doesn't want more now. I guess the other distractions were too much.
Yeah, it did in fact complete its primary mission, but i'm certain NASA expected this thing to operate much longer. Sometimes I think NASA puts short 'primary missions' on expensive projects so if it fails early they can still say the mission was completed, but they really expect them to run years past that date (Voyager, Mars Rovers, Hubble, etc).
But think about it. We will be discovering planets 100s of millions of light years away. Which means, the light that reaches that telescope is a 100s of million years old record of that planet. It could have had a global warming event or been blown out of the sky by rogue Romulans by now
