Hubble Device Telescope sidelined by problem with its Nineteen Eighties computer

NASA is working like a flash to repair the Hubble Device Telescope after an problem with a 1980s-period computer on board caused the smartly-known orbiting observatory to like a flash shut down.

The Hubble Device Telescope, which in 2020 marked its 30th year in orbit, halted operations on Sunday (June 13) appropriate after 4 p.m. EDT (2000 GMT) after considerations arose with some of the telescope’s computer systems from the 1980s. The Hubble operations team suspects that the deliver might maybe well maybe be as a result of a degrading reminiscence module, per a NASA assertion. The team is laborious at work looking to merely the deliver, switching to at least some of the telescope’s several backup modules.

“Assuming that this problem is corrected by plot of some of the a strategy of suggestions readily available to the operations team, Hubble is anticipated to proceed yielding astonishing discoveries into the slow 2020s or past,” the operations team at NASA’s Goddard Device Flight Center in Maryland urged Device.com in an electronic mail. Nonetheless, “there just isn’t in any appreciate times any definitive timeline yet as to when this might occasionally be executed, tested and brought again to operational establish,” they added. 

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On Sunday, the telescope’s main computer stopped receiving alerts from the payload computer and sent an error message to the bottom machine again on Earth, which alerted the operations team that something used to be unsuitable, the team said. 

“Prognosis signifies the error is likely as a result of a degraded reminiscence problem. Memory can degrade over time as a result of years of exposure to radiation in location. Concerns love this are anticipated, which is why there are backup reminiscence modules on the spacecraft,” they added. 

The computer that stopped engaged on Sunday is a payload computer that controls the observatory’s science devices as section of the telescope’s Science Instrument Adjust and Recordsdata Facing module. The module used to be ultimate changed at some level of the ultimate astronaut servicing mission to the observatory in 2009. The payload computer is a NASA Accepted Spacecraft Computer-1 (NSSC-1) machine that used to be in-constructed the 1980s. 

“The payload computer is from the 1980s, which is when Hubble used to be designed and constructed. Treasure any spacecraft hardware, the cruel atmosphere of location can get its toll on electronics. Attributable to this there are backup reminiscence modules and a backup payload computer onboard the spacecraft that we can swap to if wished,” the operations team participants wrote in the electronic mail.. 

After the telescope shut down on Sunday, Hubble’s main computer then automatically establish all of its devices into safe mode and, on Monday (June 14), team participants at NASA Goddard restarted the payload computer that caused the shutdown. Nonetheless, after the restart, the computer ran into the the same considerations that caused the initial shutdown.

The operations team is “currently in the strategy of switching reminiscence modules onboard the spacecraft,” the team said. As soon as this task is total and the craft has been thoroughly tested, this is in a position to maybe also resume frequent operations. 

Here just isn’t any longer the vital time that Hubble has speed into considerations that wished fixing. Early in the telescope’s lifetime, scientists came across an error with the observatory’s pointing-grab an eye on machine and points with the form of its main replicate. 

The vital servicing mission used to be launched to work on the telescope in 1993, and missions to Hubble continued to initiate correct by plot of NASA’s location shuttle program. On these missions, astronauts worked on many points, collectively with changing batteries and the gyroscopes that allowed Hubble to level progressively at a long way-away spots in the cosmos. 

Hubble has overcome considerations extra honest recently as nicely. This past March, as an illustration, the telescope went into a holding “safe mode” after struggling an obvious tool glitch but bounced again about a days later.

Email Chelsea Gohd at [email protected] or apply her on Twitter @chelsea_gohd. Be aware us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.