Hubble Going to be Fixed!

After more than two weeks of not sending out data, the Hubble Space Telescope may be working again as soon as October 16, NASA scientists announced in a teleconference October 14. For 18 years the telescope has been working perfectly, but data abruptly stopped coming from the Hubble on September 27 because of an unknown failure, like I said in one of my earlier blogs. To get Hubble working again, early in the morning on October 15, scientists will begin to transmit a series of long binary strings of 0s and 1s, to instruct the telescope to switch its operations from the failed equipment to a backup unit.

“This unit operated flawlessly for 18 years. Unfortunately, nothing lasts forever,” said Art Whipple, lead mission systems engineer for Hubble at NASA-Goddard. Scientists are hopeful that the backup unit will get Hubble’s science data flowing to Earth again as early as October 15. A group of about 50 scientists at NASA-Goddard will remotely perform the equipment switch, which could make the whole telescope stop working or make it start again. “The team is ready to go,” Whipple said. “They are at their best when faced with something like this.”

I really hope that the switch works because the Hubble has taken some of the most amazing photographs ever. Here is a link to some of the breathtaking images taken by the Hubble: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/legacygallery/gallery-9139/Hubble--The-amazing-space-photographs-universe.html


www.sciencenews.org