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Hubble Telescope's Main Camera Shuts Down

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the always-on-the-fritz dept.

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."

3 of 131 comments (clear)

  1. *sigh* another incomplete /. by Raynor · · Score: 5, Informative

    RTFA: It was restored from safemode on Sunday -.-

    They are hoping to switch it back over to the primary power supply and get limited usage until the shuttle gets there.

    --
    "Dictator Flakes. They WILL be delicious."
  2. It's Cooked by floateyedumpi · · Score: 5, Informative

    It shorted, and burned enough plastic or wiring to trip the overpressure sensor (do wire shorts smell in space?). See this message from the Space Telescope Science Institute. Side A electronics are available which might be able to run a portion of the instrument. This has been expected since the first failure last summer, and "contingency" proposals are available to keep the observatory running using its other instruments (ACS has recently been the most used).

  3. it's not all bad news by photontaker · · Score: 5, Informative

    I work at STScI and it sounds like they're going to be able to switch ACS back to the side 1 power supply. Unfortunately, it means that the WFC which is the most used won't be working. A failure of the side 1 supply to WFC is why they had to switch to side 2 this summer.

    The good news is that WFPC2 is still working even if it doesn't have the imaging area or sensitivity of ACS. The telescope allocation committee just re-opened applications for next cycle so lots of people are just going to switch their proposals from using ACS to using WFPC2 (myself included). As a side note: anyone can apply for telescope time since its run with taxpayer money. Just go to the site and fill out the form.

    The other good news is that the servicing mission is going ahead for early 2008 when they're going to put in WFPC3 which is a bit better than ACS and will have much lower distortions and a great new spectrograph called COS. That'll take HST to the end of its life in 2013. At that point, the next space telescope, JWST, will be launched. In case you're wondering though, JWST will have a much shorter life since it won't be possible to service it.

    So yeah, it sucks that ACS smoked itself but it's not the end of the world.