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The Hubble Space Telescope is currently offline.
On Sunday, June 13, the telescope’s payload computer shut down, and engineers here on Earth are currently in the process of getting it back up and running again.
A useful computer, as you might expect, is vital to Hubble’s ongoing scientific operations. It is the “brain” of the machine, coordinating and controlling the various instruments that Hubble is equipped with. It also monitors the telescope for problems.
Initially, NASA engineers speculated that the cause of the downtime was a deteriorating memory module. An attempt to restart the computer failed, so on Wednesday, June 16, the Hubble operations team attempted to switch to a spare memory module.
This, too, proved futile.
“The command to start the backup unit failed,” NASA explained in a blog post.
“Another attempt was made on the two modules Thursday night to obtain more diagnostic information while trying to get these memory modules back online. However, those attempts were unsuccessful.”
It’s not entirely unexpected that Hubble would have some aches and pains. The space telescope, launched in 1990, has been in operation for more than 30 years at this point, and is undergoing several mission extensions. Its most recent (and last) service mission took place in 2009, and it’s only a matter of time before something irreparably bounces back.
In 2018, Hubble experienced a gyroscope failure. In that case, the engineers were able to basically solve the problem by giving the telescope a space jolt. Earlier this year, the telescope had to be put into safe mode after a software error occurred.
When designing an instrument like Hubble, to be operated remotely and physically difficult to access, failsafe safety is critical.
Therefore, in this case, the situation is not lost either. The payload computer (a standard NASA spacecraft computer or NSSC-1) has four 64-bit memory modules for utilization. Only use one at any time; The other three are backups. In addition, there is a second backup computer on board that can be deployed in the event of a major problem.
“The operations team will conduct tests and gather more information about the system to further isolate the problem,” NASA wrote. “The scientific instruments will remain in a safe state until the problem is resolved. The telescope itself and the scientific instruments remain in good health.”
So it’s very likely that Hubble will live, continuing to teleport us to the stars. Not forever. Eventually, its parts will wear out, or its orbit will decay, and engineers will need to bring it home, to a glorious death that burns upon re-entry.
But there is no set date for the end of Hubble’s mission, and we hope to enjoy its contributions to science for at least a few more years.
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Picture Credit!