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Hubble Telescope Hit By Mechanical Failure (bbc.com)

Posted by msmash on from the roadblocks dept.

The Hubble Space Telescope is operating with only essential functions after it lost one of the gyroscopes needed to point the spacecraft. From a report: The observatory, described as one of the most important scientific instruments ever created, was placed in "safe mode" over the weekend, while scientists try to fix the problem. Hubble had been operating with four of its six gyroscopes when one of them failed on Friday. The telescope was launched in 1990. After the gyro failure at the weekend, controllers tried to switch on a different one, but that was found to be malfunctioning. That leaves Hubble with only two fully functional gyros. At any given time, Hubble needs three of its gyroscopes to work for optimal efficiency.

6 of 141 comments (clear)

  1. Re:But.. by olsmeister · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's flat, not planar you clod. There is a bottom. That's where the little people live.

  2. Re:But.. by CapS · · Score: 4, Funny

    I thought that's where the turtles are.

  3. Re:Ouch by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 3, Funny

    But Elon might actually offer a solution, or at least offer to offer one.

    I've heard that he has a spare one-man capsule that was designed specifically for rescue missions.

  4. An opportunity by PPH · · Score: 1, Funny

    The aliens can move their mother ship up from Pluto to a position behind the moon while we aren't looking.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
    1. Re:An opportunity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

      I think that the aliens are waiting for Will Smith and Jeff Goldbloom to die before making their move.

      Will Smith died in 2007 during test flight of some sort of human alien hybrid jet fighter.

  5. Safe Mode? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    I hope they rebooted it in Safe Mode With Networking. Otherwise we're screwed.