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After spending more than a month orbiting Earth in “safe mode,” NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope is back online, with all of its scientific instruments fully operational, according to a NASA statement.
Engineers relaunched the satellite – launched in 1990 and built with 1980s hardware – on Saturday (July 17) after identifying a possible problem in Hubble’s power control unit, which is “providing voltage supply. constant to the payload computer hardware, ”according to NASA.
This payload computer suddenly crashed on June 13, automatically taking all of the satellite’s scientific instruments offline and placing them in a “safe mode” configuration, Previously reported live science. Technicians have tried but failed several times to restart the ailing computer.
But last week, NASA engineers discovered that the source of the problem likely lies in a special protection circuit that prevents the satellite’s power control unit from sending too much or too little power to the satellite. payload computer. If the supply voltage exceeds safe operating levels, the circuit will automatically instruct the payload computer to shut down, according to NASA.
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“The team’s analysis suggests that either the voltage level of the regulator is outside acceptable levels (thus triggering the secondary protection circuit), or the secondary protection circuit has degraded over time and is stuck in. this state of inhibition, “NASA wrote on July 14. .
NASA technicians worked around this problem by switching operations to the satellite payload standby computer and activating a standby power control unit.
With this backup hardware started, the satellite should be able to continue observing the cosmos – and hopefully working in tandem with the new James Webb Space Telescope, expected to launch later this year – for many years to come, according to NASA. Scheduled space observations that the satellite missed during its month in safe mode will be rescheduled at a later date, the agency added.
Originally posted on Live Science.
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