Its been a rough year for NASAs science program, with a major pullback in its Mars exploration program and continuing threats to cancel the James Webb Space Telescope.

Now comes news today that NASA has acquired two Hubble-like telescopes from the National Reconnaissance Office, the U.S. Government agency in charge of designing, building, launching, and maintaining Americas intelligence satellites.

These telescopes, which are identical, were built eight years after Hubble so they have greater capabilities, such as being able to image a field of view 100 times larger than Hubble. They are space-ready but were never used.

The newly acquired telescopes are a shorter, stubbier version of the Hubble shown above. (NASA)

This is a great opportunity for NASA, and Ill get to that in a moment, but stop and think about this for a moment. The Department of Defense has the kind of funding needed hundred of millions to billions of dollars, presumably to build not one, but two, Hubble-like optical telescopes and then never use them.

Also unanswered is what the telescopes might have been used for by the NRO, but one guesses it wasnt for probing the complexities of dark energy.

But thats what NASA wants them for. The telescopes fit the nature of the kind of instrument NASA needs to conduct its Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope mission, ranked as the top priority among large science mission in the countrys most recent survey of astronomy and astrophysics projects.

The telescopes are space-ready, but far from being a ready to launch project. They still need a spacecraft that includes power, communications, control and thermal protection systems, in addition to a launch vehicle and a means to control them from the ground.

Nevertheless the telescopes could provide a critical impetus to getting the WFIRST project moving forward.

It could be a real game changer for a project that was having trouble getting a lot of traction, said Alan Dressler, a Carnegie Institute astronomer who has studied the telescopes for astronomical use.

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NASA gets 2 Hubble-like telescopes