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The Hubble Space Telescope ceased its scientific operations and entered "safe mode" shortly after 18 hours. EDT on October 5, when one of its instruments failed, according to NASA, which investigates the problem.
The defective part in question is one of three gyroscopes used to direct and stabilize the space observatory telescope.
Safe mode places the telescope in a stable configuration until ground control can correct the problem and resume normal operations. The rest of the Hubble instruments were not affected by the fault.
Six telescopes were installed on the telescope in 2009. The telescope needs only three at a time for maximum efficiency, but was designed to continue to make scientific observations with one.
According to NASA, the failure of the gyroscope was not totally unexpected. He had a behavior suggesting that he was coming to the end of his life for about a year. In addition, two other gyroscopes of the same type had already failed.
The remaining three gyroscopes, two of which are currently in operation, have slightly improved designs and are expected to last much longer.
A team from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland and the Space Telescope Science Institute is conducting tests and analysis to determine how to restore the functionality of the defective gyro.
At the same time, an anomaly review committee, consisting of Hubble team experts and industry personalities familiar with the design of the gyroscope, is being trained in order to improve the quality of life. study further the problem and develop a recovery plan.
If recovery efforts fail, Hubble will resume scientific operations in a "reduced gyro" mode using a single gyroscope. This would mean that the telescope would have less sky coverage at the same time and that observations requiring very accurate pointing would become more difficult.
Hubble, which is run jointly by NASA and the European Space Agency, has been operating for more than 28 years. At that time, he captured some of the most dramatic and striking images of our universe. Although it is not the first space observatory to be launched, it is both one of the largest and most versatile, providing astronomers with many options for how to do it. observation of the cosmos.
Over the course of his life, many Hubble parts had to be replaced and other malfunctions corrected during service missions.
Notably, the operators discovered shortly after the launch of Hubble in 1990 that the main mirror exhibited a tiny aberration, a fiftieth of the thickness of a human hair, which severely affected the clarity of its first images . The installation of a new mirror was not feasible, astronauts who were walking in space had to install corrective lenses and new instruments during a shuttle mission in 1993.
NASA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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