Hubble telescope fails, NASA to delay shuttle

[krispos42]

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AP) -- NASA said Monday it is delaying its mission to the Hubble Space Telescope until next year because of a serious breakdown of the observatory in orbit.

Space shuttle Atlantis had been scheduled to blast off in just two weeks, but a new and unexpected problem with the Hubble appeared on Saturday night when the telescope stopped sending science data.

That potentially means a new repair issue for the astronauts to confront -- one that they haven't trained for and never anticipated.

The failure of the command and data-handling system for Hubble's science instruments means that the telescope is unable to capture and beam down the data needed to produce its stunning deep space images.

Early Monday afternoon, NASA announced that the October 14 launch had been postponed until at least early next year, possibly February.

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http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/space/09/29/shuttle.hubble...

Shit.

[Phoonzang]

1. What's the chances of it failing right before they were about to launch a repair mission?

Strange...

[caraher]

2. They needed that money for Wall Street

Talk about a repair job!

[Orsino]

3. No bailouts for big telescopes!

But, yeah. Shit.

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. NASA to start long distance repairs on Hubble

NASA engineers say they know how to fix the broken Hubble Space Telescope: They have to wake up computer parts that have been sleeping in space for more than 18 years.

On Wednesday, NASA will start a complicated remote-control fix of a major glitch that stopped the telescope from capturing and beaming down pictures. Hubble should be able to send stunning astronomy photos back to Earth by Friday, officials said.
...
Key to the repair is activating a backup data-handling system that hasn't been turned on since the telescope launched in 1990. Science data will be rerouted to that system, the equivalent of driving a new route that hasn't been used before.

Art Whipple, manager of the Hubble systems management office, said he's confident the backup system will work but "it's obviously a possibility that things will not come up."

He said space components on other satellites that have not been powered for 10 or 15 years have worked when activated.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h7Mv47q1iDJKu746rKUj...

[sakabatou]

5. Hope it doesn't overload