October 24, 2008
Engineers Succeed in Starting Backup Computer on Hubble Telescope
The Hubble Space Telescope’s wide-field planetary camera, which astronomers have come to think of as an essential research tool, could be back in business as early as tomorrow now that the telescope’s managers have succeeded in switching on a backup computer that formats data for transmission to earth.
According to reports in the Los Angeles Times and elsewhere, engineers at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Goddard Space Flight Center were able to boot up the backup machine — unused for the past 18 years — after a couple of false starts. The wide-field planetary camera, the telescope’s main imaging device, could resume sending pictures as early as tomorrow, NASA officials said.
The Hubble Space Telescope, carried into space aboard the shuttle Discovery in 1990, has long outlived its expected lifespan. But outcries from astronomers and others recently persuaded the space agency to plan one more repair mission, expected to take place next year, that would allow researchers another six years’ use of the telescope. —Lawrence Biemiller
Posted on Friday October 24, 2008 | Permalink |Comments
Commenting is closed for this article.
Previous: Sabato Uses YouTube to Encourage Students to Vote
Next: New Book by Educause Explores Impact of 'Cloud Computing' on Colleges
This is a real lesson for all engineering students—design with integrity and build your design to last. Bravo to the engineers who diligently designed this subsystem 20 years ago. — Shiu-Kai Chin
— Shiu-Kai Chin Oct 27, 07:34 AM #
The difference between the social sciences and physical sciences are frequently made obvious by example.
— Bob S Oct 27, 08:28 AM #
Hubble has done more to promote science than almost any discovery. It has inspired the world with a sense of the magnitude of the universe. Carl Sagan used to tell us about billions and billions of stars, and now we can see for ourselves how correct he was. The Hubble deep field views revealed to us that even the darkest point of our night sky is filled with thousands of galaxies. Live on, Hubble, live on.
— Robert Killoren Oct 27, 09:07 AM #
We are getting spoiled by our space engineers repeated success in deploying equipment that far outlasts its life expectancy!
— CW Oct 27, 05:22 PM #