Hubble Space Telescope Bounces Back from Glitches
tariq Malik
space.com – Thu Oct 30, 8:46 am ET
The Hubble Space Telescope appears to be in good health after weeks of troubleshooting following a debilitating glitch that thwarted its ability to beam cosmic images back to Earth, NASA officials said Wednesday.
Engineers reactivated Hubble's science instruments over the last week and are poised to release the first new image from the iconic orbital observatory on Thursday, said Susan Hendrix, a spokesperson for NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., where space telescope operations are based.
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The Sept. 27 failure of a vital data relay channel left the 18-year-old Hubble telescope unable to transmit the bulk of its science data and imagery. The channel, the Side A relay of Hubble's Science Instrument Control and Data Handling system, had been working properly since the telescope launched in April 1990.
Efforts to switch to a backup Side B channel last week met with challenges of their own, with two separate glitches thwarting the initial attempt. But a second try appears to have been successful, with Hubble engineers reactivating the telescope's main science instruments over the last week.
The remote control fix required engineers to power up and switch to backup systems that had been hibernating since Hubble launched into space.
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The final Hubble overhaul is expected to extend the space telescope's mission lifetime through at least 2013, mission managers have said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/200810...ckfromglitches
Yay Hubble!
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Originally Posted by Psychoblues
