One of HST's Cameras Is Back In Action

StupendousMan writes "One of the two big cameras aboard the Hubble Space Telescope is the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, or WFPC2 for short. As the most recent HST status report indicates, the camera was recently powered up again and sent commands to take some test images. Today (Sunday, Oct 26), I received E-mail from a colleague at STScI indicating that the calibration images were 'nominal.' That's NASA-speak for 'fine and dandy.' The E-mail goes on to say 'The data look nominal, indicating that Hubble optical imaging capabilities are in fine shape. (We can expect more glorious Hubble images in the near future.) ... Science with WFPC2 has resumed, and plans are underway to restore ACS/SBC to service this coming week.' Let's hope that the other big instrument, the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), also comes back to life successfully. We should find out in just a week or so."

Comments

Hopefully...

[JackassJedi]

Hopefully they will also be able to restore functionality to WPSHU (Whatever Propulsion System Hubble Uses), so we can get a nice DOL (Direct Oriented Look) on the STARS (Stars That ARe Special). If not, I will commit SWABBL (Suicide With A Big, Big fraking Lens) and then BLAH (Burn Like A Hubble inferno) like Pinback on bomb #20!

Re:Hopefully...

[JackassJedi]

Basically you have this nice Mercedes, but instead of a windshield the front is fully closed.

How bad can it be, right? you think, so you drive straight on, hit your fence really hard, break through and stagger down the road until you hit right the front window of Aunt Elma's bakery.

All the buns drop and scatter over the floor and onto the walkway, and a sudden bystander drops her marmalade, which gives you a dissociated orange marmalade jelly bun inversion.

The resulting proton and muon-neutrino particle emission burns a big hole into your windshield, just SLIGHTLY missing your head, and finally you can see.

The resulting Schroedinger waveform collapse from you suddenly looking at the buns, the marmalade, the woman who dropped the marmalade and Aunt Elma causes a time paradox which results in you repeating the event forever and ever, that is, until you realize, that you're NOT the final cylon, because, you just can't be (can you?).

Good To Hear

[quanticle]

While this is good news, its still important to remember that Hubble is running on backup systems, and that whatever redundancy was built into the original design is largely used up. Hopefully this will allow NASA to push the scheduled repair mission forward.

Re:Good To Hear

[Anonymous Coward]

Good news?

No, this is definitely not good news. This means that the Hubble knows how to fix its injuries. It also probably means that the Hubble has attained consciousness. How happy do you think that the Hubble is going to be when it realizes that we intend to attach a rocket to it so that we can burn it up in the atmosphere? If the Hubble can pull an advanced camera out of the vacuum of space, it could probably also pull out a giant anti-matter bomb that could annihilate the Earth.

There is only one safe course of action. We must launch a surprise nuclear attack on the Hubble before it can adapt any further.

I Can See Clearly Now

[Overkill Nbuta]

The glitch is gone.

Just to clarify the status of ACS...

[Einer2]

The Solar Blind Channel (the least useful component of ACS, unless you happen to use it) is the only component coming back. The Wide Field Channel and High Resolution Channel, the real workhorses, aren't coming back until after the Servicing Mission. Even then, the ACS repair is on the bottom of their priority list since most of its functionality is duplicated (albeit not as well) by the optical channel of WFC3. This means that the ACS repair, perhaps along with the STIS repair, most likely will be crowded out of the schedule by replacement of the instrument control computer.