Hubble Failure

[mamadrama]

Hmm, does this seem suspicious? If I understand correctly no data, no pictures are being transmitted at this time.

_http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn14839-hubble-failure-delays-repair-mission-to-2009.html

Hubble failure delays repair mission to 2009
01:27 30 September 2008
NewScientist.com news service
Rachel Courtland

A critical failure on the Hubble Space Telescope has forced NASA to delay its mission to upgrade the observatory until at least February 2009. That will allow NASA to test and prepare a replacement part for launch, NASA officials said on Monday.

The agency had planned to send the space shuttle Atlantis on a mission to repair and upgrade the telescope in just two weeks' time. But on Saturday, operators discovered problems with a device that stores and transmits most of the probe's science data.

There are actually two identical versions of the device, called the Control Unit/Science Data Formatter, on the telescope. Side A failed, but engineers hope to bring the identical Side B online in the next few weeks to continue the telescope's science activities.

Still, that will leave Hubble with no backup for the crucial system. So the agency plans to send up a full replacement, which is currently in storage at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

"We want to make sure we leave Hubble as healthy as we possibly can," Ed Weiler, NASA's associate administrator for science, told reporters.

The spare, which was last used in 2001 to test another instrument, will require a battery of tests to determine if it is ready for launch. If all goes well, the instrument could ship to Florida's Kennedy Space Center by early January, says Hubble manager Preston Burch of Goddard.

Costly delay
But fitting its installation into the servicing mission may be tricky. Atlantis's five scheduled spacewalks are already jam-packed with plans to replace two instruments, repair two others, and install all-new gyros, batteries and insulation. The revamp could give Hubble its best vision yet and extend the telescope's life to at least 2013.

The 60-kilogram (135-pound) control unit is designed to be manipulated by astronauts and could potentially be installed in less than two hours. The installation could be accomplished on the fifth spacewalk day, part of which has been set aside just in case astronauts need time to wrap up repairs to the telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys, Burch says.

Engineers are still investigating what caused the glitch. "There was no indication of an impending failure," Burch says. The unit runs at a higher temperature than other components, which might have created some problems, he noted.

The launch delay could cost NASA more than $10 million a month and could be a challenge to NASA's already tight launch schedule, since the space shuttles are set to be retired in 2010.

But Burch notes the timing could have been worse. Had it occurred after the servicing mission, the telescope could have been incapacitated by just one more glitch. "If this was going to happen, it couldn't have happened at a better time," he said.

NASA still plans to move forward on the shuttle Endeavour's next mission to the International Space Station, which could now launch as early as 14 November.

Endeavour had been set to serve as a rescue ship in case the shuttle Atlantis ran into trouble during the Hubble repair. Now, the shuttle Discovery will play that role.

 

[anart]

Well, with Hubble, it's difficult to tell. There have, historically, been problems there. However, with that said, it did make me wonder, momentarily, just what is it that Hubble picked up that made 'shutting it down' necessary? Not sure how to tell at this point - so it seems that, barring other data, it becomes yet another data point to keep in mind.

 

[vinny]

maybe I'm remembering this wrongly, but I think that a while back (a couple of years?) a decision was made to cease maintenance of the Hubble (because work was being proposed on a new 'super telescope' that would be even bigger), and at the time it cause a stir because the prediction was that Hubble reliability would now start to decline, and eventually fail and shut down. Perhaps that was a deliberate setup for such a situation where they "have to switch it off", because someone knows what is coming?

 

[mkrnhr]

According to NASA, Hubble telescope will be upgraded with new instruments and will function until 2014 :
_http://sm4.gsfc.nasa.gov/overview/intro.php
Even if Hubble (and other telescopes) sees something they wont to show us, they do not need to stop the telescope. It is easier. First, when you want to observe a celestial object of a given portion of the sky at a given wavelength, you must demand an observation time and to justify it. Your demand could be simply refused. The other way is not to publish images.
Actually, ground-based telescopes with proper instrumentation have the same capabilities as Hubble (that's why the new James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is under construction) in visible wavelengths. For IR astronomy one has to go to space because of the atmosphere.
The main problem is what to look and where.