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Hubble Telescope's Main Camera Shuts Down
anthemaniac writes "Space.com is reporting that the aging observatory's primary camera, the ACS, has been in safe mode since the weekend. From the article: 'An initial investigation indicates the camera has stopped functioning, and the input power feed to its Side B electronics package has failed.' The camera has shut down before and been revived."
Since they have already said that repair missions to the hubble scope are off the agenda, sooner or later its going to die. There are replacements on the way anyhow.
Personally I think they should boost it into higher orbit so it stays safe for future space archeologists. The same bods who will eventually be interested in retreiving the Viking missions, and who knows, if we get fast enough ships, the voyagers.
Truly spoken like an ignorant retard. Or a troll, in which case I'm falling for it. This "POS" is one of the greatest astronomical instrument ever devised, and has yielded enough data for years of study to come. There's a reason why scientist want to keep it around.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Hmm, did defunct Chinese weather satelite debris damage Hubble?..
We have a telescope in orbit that's servicable. It seems to me that the big, expensive part of this marvel would be the large optical reflector. Unless someone could point out a reason otherwise, would it not make sense to just keep making camera upgrades to put on the end of this thing? Yes, I realize that I may be oversimplying this procedure, but if it's not feasible to service it in the near future, is there something wrong with tucking it away in a safe orbit until it would become feasible...or clearly determine that the telescope has reached the end of its useful life and then de-orbit it?
Heck, if privatized, manned spaceflight is just around the corner, sell the silly thing to a private entity so they can fix it up and sell operating (viewing) time on it. Richard Branson and his ilk could have a field day with it.
The Hubble is getting old.
I'm pretty sure they were going to stop servicing it.
The question is: Will they come up with a replacement or try to fix the Hubble again?
And would be cost effective to repair it again or has it's time finally come?
~ Mooga
Eh? In case you're actually serious about this, (a) The US demonstrated ASAT capability over 20 years ago, and (b) ASAT capability is completely irrelevant, as such attacks don't deorbit the satellite, but result in tens of thousands of pieces of debris that are dangerous to other satellites.
In any case, casting aspersions on NASA's ability based on Hubble is ridiculous, as it's been by any measure a spectacularly successful instrument, which even 17 years after launch has capabilities not matched by any foreseeable ground-based instruments (no, not even with adaptive optics) or by any planned space instrument.
That's because if you mention a moderation category (such as Insightful) anywhere in your post, regardless of its relevance, it increases the chance of that post being modded as such.
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.