Hayadan > A computer glitch disabled the Hubble Space Telescope

A computer glitch disabled the Hubble Space Telescope

NASA is working to solve a problem with the Hubble Space Telescope computer. The computer stopped working on Sunday, June 13, shortly after 16:00 (23:00 Israel time). This is already the second malfunction this year in the aging telescope

The Hubble Space Telescope was deployed on April 25, 1990 from the high-redundancy space shuttle Discovery. Hubble's location outside the distortions of the atmosphere gives it an unfettered view of stars, planets, and galaxies out to a distance of more than 13.4 billion light-years. Photo: NASA / Smithsonian / Lockheed Corporation

NASA is working to solve a problem with the Hubble Space Telescope computer. The computer stopped working on Sunday, June 13, shortly after 16:00 (23:00 Israel time). After analyzing the data, Hubble's operations team examines whether a faulty memory module caused the computer to stop working.

The purpose of the Hemet computer is to control the science instruments on the spacecraft and coordinate them. After the computer stopped working, it stopped transmitting a "keep alive" signal, which is a normal "handshake" between the spacecraft computer and the main space computers to indicate that everything is fine. The main computer automatically placed all science instruments in a safe mode configuration. Control center personnel at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland restarted the computer on Monday, June 14, but it soon experienced the same problem.

The Hemated computer is NASA's standard space system (NSSC-1) built in the 2009s. It is part of the Science Instrument Command and Data Processing Module, which was replaced during the last servicing mission by astronauts on the telescope in XNUMX. The module has various levels of redundancy that can be activated to act as the primary system when needed.
This is Hubble's second shutdown this year, after in March the operation of the telescope stopped because the aperture door did not close despite a command sent to it. The operators of the telescope had to move to prevent the change of command on the aperture door.
These incidents show that the Hubble Space Telescope has aged after thirty years of operation in space. NASA has been waiting a long time for the launch of Hubble's replacement - the James Webb Telescope. This telescope was also built with technologies that are now obsolete, and it is supposed to be launched in the coming months with a delay of about a decade.

More of the topic in Hayadan: