The Hubble Space Telescope is old. It is fast approaching its 31st anniversary since its launch into its mission to study the cosmos, and although 31 years may not seem like much, for a piece of machine orbiting the Earth – and to bears everything that comes with exposure to space – it’s a very long time. It has worked well for a very long time, returning some incredible images and other observations of the structures in space, but it will not last forever, and this week it showed its age.
On March 7, Hubble unexpectedly closed its scientific observations. Spacecraft health systems have triggered the switch, putting the telescope in “safe mode” because of what is described as “a software error in the spacecraft’s main computer.” Unfortunately, this was just the beginning of the strangeness that Hubble managers had to deal with last week.
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As NASA explains in a new blog post, the error occurred at about 4 a.m. EST. When the Hubble team checked the telescope to see what was happening, they found that something was wrong with a recent update to the ship’s software. The change was to help keep the telescope stable, despite the fact that one of its gyroscopes was not what it was. “[The Hubble team] determined that the accessories were not allowed to write to a specific location in the computer’s memory, which caused a problem with the main flight computer and subsequently caused the spacecraft to enter safely, “says NASA. .
NASA says it is already working on a solution to the software problem and will withdraw the changes made in the meantime so that the telescope can return to work. However, when the team took a good look at the spacecraft’s systems, they discovered another problem: Hubble’s self-closing opening door was locked open. The door is designed to close if the telescope accidentally points at the Sun, as this could damage or destroy some of its most sensitive bits. The team confirmed that the controls and power reached the door engine, but nothing happened. Fortunately, a backup engine is only installed for such a malfunction, and NASA will now use the backup engine instead of the primary engine.
Phew! So that’s it, right? Unfortunately no. While NASA was preparing to return the telescope to its working mode, an “unexpected error” occurred in wide-field camera 3. NASA does not reveal many details about this, but says it will suspend use of that instrument until it finds out. which is not right.
NASA really wants Hubble to live many more years, and to be honest, the agency needs it to keep working. With the incredible delays and overtaking of the James Webb Space Telescope (due to repeated failures and the incompetence of contractor Northrop Grumman), NASA is largely dependent on Hubble. Let’s hope that any problems that arise can be solved.
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Mike Wehner has reported on technology and video games over the past decade, covering breaking news and trends in VR, portable devices, smartphones and future technology. Most recently, Mike served as technical editor at The Daily Dot and was featured in USA Today, Time.com, and countless other websites and prints. His love of reporting is second only to gambling addiction.