Hubble Down
Sometime this week the main camera on the Hubble Telescope shut down.
The primary instrument aboard the Hubble Space Telescope shut down this week, an unwelcome reminder that the observatory’s future is tightly tied to NASA’s upcoming space shuttle launch.
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If engineers’ initial troubleshooting efforts are correct, the problem should be resolved by switching to a backup electronics unit. A circuit on the primary unit is believed to have failed.
The backup unit was extensively tested before Hubble was put into orbit in 1990 but has not been powered on since.
“We fully expect that it will be working,” Ruitberg said.
The Hubble Ultra Deep Field (Galaxies)
Lets hope they are right considering the $2 billion in tax payers dollars orbiting earth, not to mention the ‘few’ million it costs to service it with spaceflights.