Hubble Space Telescope Glitch Continues on Fourth Day, 1980s Computer the Source of Trouble?

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has made more than 1.3 million observations since its mission began on April 24, 1990, and has helped publish over 15,000 scientific papers.

For over 30 years, it has helped scientists with their astronomical observations, but now it is facing technical troubles due to a 1980s-era computer that stopped working, MailOnline reported.

That means operations of the space telescope have also halted as the space agency tries to fix it. On Monday, flight controllers at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland tried restarting the computer but failed to make the device work again.

The Hubble Space Telescope has been idle for four days already since Sunday shortly after 4 pm EDT, perhaps due to a bad memory board. Cameras and other science instruments are now in a safe mode.

Hubble Space Telescope Showing More Signs of Aging

The team at NASA is now trying to switch to a backup memory unit after the 1980s-era computer stopped working due to problems with the memory board.

The space telescope will be tested for a day if that works before the space agency turns back on the science instruments, and astronomical observation can resume.

According to NASA's statement, the said payload computer is a NASA Standard Spacecraft Computer-1 (NSSC-1) system that was built in the 1980s.

"The NSSC-1 system is part of the Science Instrument Command and Data Handling module that was replaced in 2009 during the last astronaut servicing mission", NASA said in the statement. They added that it has different levels of redundancy that can be turned on to be the primary system when needed.

Daily Mail reported that a NASA spokesperson told them that NSSC-1 only requires one memory module but has four so it can be swapped when one of them encounters a problem.

After over 30 years, the Hubble has been showing more and more signs of aging despite a series of repairs and updates done during spacewalking of NASA's shuttle era.

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Hubble Space Telescope's Successor to be Launched Later This Year

The Hubble Space Telescope just recently celebrated its 31st anniversary with an image of a giant star that is on the verge of destruction.

According to Yahoo! Finance, the 31-year-old space telescope will soon be replaced by a more advanced and powerful space telescope later this year.

The American space agency is planning to launch Hubble's successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, in November. Unlike the Hubble Space Telescope, the James Webb Space telescope will be too far from the planet for astronaut tune-ups as it will be 1 million miles (1.5 million km) away in a solar orbit.

The launch of Webb has been delayed many times and is years behind the original schedule, with the latest delay of two weeks as a result of rocket processing and issues on schedule.

NASA hopes that the two space telescopes will have an overlap in orbit later this year as Hubble's successor is launched into space.