Hubble Space Telescope Has Been Offline for a Week as NASA Fails to Fix It for the Third Time

NASA is trying hard to save its prized space telescope, the Hubble Space Telescope, after its computer that controls the science instruments suddenly stopped working on June 13. Since then, it has already been a week since the space telescope went offline.

After being in space for over 30 years, the Earth-orbiting observatory has captured images of the births and deaths of stars, discovered new moons of Pluto, and tracked interstellar objects.

Unfortunately, NASA engineers have not yet pinpointed the cause of the problem of the space telescope. It is now using its backup computer and is in safe mode.

Hubble Space Telescope Has Been Offline for a Week as NASA Fails to Fix It for the Third Time

(Photo: Pixabay)
Hubble Space Telescope

Hubble Space Telescope Glitch

Launched in 1990, Hubble Space Telescope has contributed greatly to understanding the cosmos for over three decades. As it faces technical problems, NASA is unfortunately still resolving the issue of the payload computer for a week now.

SciTech Daily reported that the operations team would run tests and collect more information on the payload computer called NASA Standard Spacecraft Computer-1 (NSSC-1) system that was built in the 1980s.

The payload stopped working on June 13, and the space agency immediately attempted to fix it on June 14. Initial observations showed that the degrading computer memory module caused it to stop working. They tried switching it back up, but the command failed to complete.

Another attempt was conducted on the evening of June 17, obtaining more diagnostic information while also trying to bring the memory modules online. But still, the second attempt failed.

NASA said in an update last Friday that the Hubble operations team decided to run more tests and collect more diagnostic information on the system to pinpoint the problem.

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Fixes and Upgrades in the Hubble Space Telescope in the Last 30 Years

This is not the first time that the Hubble Space Telescope experienced a glitch. For the last 30 years, the Earth-orbiting observatory has also experienced repairs and upgrades, Business Insider reported.

The latest one was in March when a software error sent the observatory in a safe mode. Fortunately, NASA has fixed the problem within a week and gotten the telescope back online.

Astronauts have visited the space telescope to fix problems and repair or replace old parts on five occasions in the past. The last Hubble servicing was in 2009 when astronauts repaired two failing instruments and installed a new computer, batteries, insulation, a camera, and a spectrograph.

The repairs and upgrades done on the Hubble gave it new capabilities throughout its three-decade-long life, which paid off as it continues to conduct groundbreaking scientific discoveries throughout all these years.

Hubble is expected to be replaced by its successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, which has a field view of about 15 times larger than Hubble's.