Hubble Trouble

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Hubble, in the payload bay of the Space Shuttle, during a December 1999 servicing mission. It would be 10 years later that the telescope would receive its last visitors. Image Credit: NASA/JSC

Hubble, during a 1999 servicing mission. Image credit: NASA/JSC.

By Brooke Edwards, NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador

The Hubble Space Telescope was launched on April 24, 1990 in the Space Shuttle Discovery’s payload bay.  The telescope then was deployed into its orbital home 340 miles above the earth. Many obstacles and several service visits from astronauts ensued. Still, Hubble managed to provide us with decades of beautiful images of our universe.

Lake County Historical Society advertisement for the Evening with the Collectors on August 8, from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Lake County Historical Museum, 915 North Michigan Avenue in Baldwin. $10 donation requested. Tickets available in advance at the museum or at the door. View 12 private collections of antiques and receive verbal appraisals by Dan and Lin Hoekstra and or Ray and Sherry Kloostra of two antiques, but please, no artwork. For information call 231-898-6500
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Advertisement for the Lake County Historical Society presents Folk Fridays. 2026 Music and Performance Series. Free outdoor concerts, rain or shine at the Lake County Historical Society Museum, 915 North Michigan Avenue also known as U.S. 10 in Baldwin. Concerts start 7 p.m. Fridays in July and August. Schedule is as follows: Songwriter Chris Valillo with Power of Song in Democracy, July 31. He is pictured playing banjo and singing. Lee Murdock with his program Land of Singing Waters, August 7. He is pictured singing and playing the acoustic guitar. Reverend Robert Jones presents an evening with Leadbelly on 14. He is pictured wearing a suit and a he is resting his arm on his guitar. On August 21 is A Side of Growlers, a trio of guitar, fiddle and upright bass with toe tappin American Music. The series is funded by donations through the Zimmerman Charitable Trust, Lake County Community Foundation, the families of Carlson, Dionne and Bradford-Tripp and private donations.

A little more than 30 years ago, we could only imagine what distant galaxies look like. Thanks to Hubble, we now have stunning digital images.  These infrared, ultraviolet and visible light images have changed our understanding of space. Deep-field images have provided us with a better estimation of the age of our universe.

This stunning image by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope features the spiral galaxy NGC 5643 in the constellation of Lupus (The Wolf). NGC 5643 is about 60 million light-years from Earth. Photo courtesy of NASA/ESA.

When the Space Shuttle was retired in 2009, NASA had no way to ferry astronauts to the telescope to service it. Today, no spacecraft possesses the robotic arm manipulator (Canadarm) and payload bay that made the Space Shuttle the perfect service vehicle. Without them, there can be no plan to repair or update Hubble. As with all untended technology, the hardware onboard the telescope will one day run its course and cease functioning.

On June 13, for unknown reasons, Hubble’s payload computer stopped collecting science data. In response, NASA began to run a series of tests from the ground to diagnose the problem. This included switching on the telescope’s backup payload computer for the first time since it was placed in orbit. Tests run June 23-24 showed the same result on both computers, yet the issue was not solved. It is suspected the trouble may lie in either the Command Unit/Science Data Formatter (CU/SDF), which sends data back to Earth, or in the telescope’s power supply. Whatever the cause, it is a hard reminder that Hubble’s days are limited.

The space telescope’s legacy of discovery will continue with the James Webb Space Telescope, which is planned for launch later this year. Thank you, Hubble team, for opening our eyes to the vastness of our universe.

Source: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2021/operations-underway-to-restore-payload-computer-on-nasas-hubble-space-telescope

Updated July 16, 2021: According to ScienceMag.org, the Hubble Space Telescope is once again sending data.

Read more stories by Brooke Edwards HERE.

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