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Hubble Repairs Declared "Complete Success"
Matt G writes "The Hubble Telescope's brain transplant seems to have been a perfect succss - British-born Michael Foale and Swiss Claude Nicollier carried out the delicate operation of installing a new computer as they flew over Australia at an altitude of about 600km (360 miles) on Thursday.
The full story is posted at The BBC News site here. "
NASA needed something to go right, and it finally got it.
Kewl, we're gonna see more kewl pics soon!!!
Does anybody know what operating system (if any) runs the new 'brain' ? Is it VxWorks like pathfinder, or maybe just a very thin blanket over the hardware (just enough to get C code working or something) ?
Actually, why was it needed to upgrade the cpus? I mean, I thought hubble's cpu doesn't do more than controlling movements and handling communication protocols so it can send pictures. The new 'brain' will be 20 times faster, but what's the point? Does the telescope perform calculations on-site ? Just wondering.
The Hubble Repair mission should remind us of what, sadly, has been somewhat forgotten as of late:
These guys know their stuff.
When I sysadmin a machine I'm standing next to...I'm standing on something. I'm not floating in nothingness, hoping my toolkits don't float away into the emptiness of space, trying not to bend a couple hundred gold pins while wearing massive mittens and a spacesuit that I have to continually check for tears.
I also don't generally do it for eight hours straight without so much as a water break.
Similarly, when I'm admining a system remotely, I'm not piggybacking on top of a defense network that I can lose access to at any moment, nor am I trying to fit modern computational systems into a space-hardened antiquated piece of hardware. These are some crazy skilled coders, and they deserve much more respect than the budget-forced unit conversion fiasco implied. (We should be ashamed for the reaction! These )
I'm proud of NASA, and I'm proud of the engineer-athlete-scientists who made the Hubble space telescope possible. Thank you. Your work is appreciated.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
I would like to be the first to congratulate the people at NASA for doing a fine, fine job.
The hubble telescope is a big focus for the public's attention. With the recent, uhm, mistakes at NASA, I'm sure that alot of managers were sweating about the PR disaster if this would have gone anything but perfectly.
I can see the headlines now:
"NASA fails again!"
"Hubble goes back to sleep"
"Public faith in NASA shaken"
"NASA's funding cut for continued blunders"
"NASA shuts down for restructure"
20 years later
"Anybody remember when we went to the moon?"
Perhaps I'm being a tad melodramatic here, but who else had that queasy feeling that hubble wasn't going to go back online.. ever?
Once again, congrats to all involved, and good luck in all future endeavours.
Rami James
Israel
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rJames.org - illustration
When originally planned in 1979, the Large Space Telescope program called for return to Earth, refurbishment, and relaunch every 5 years, with on-orbit servicing every 2.5 years. Hardware lifetime and reliability requirements were based on that 2.5-year interval between servicing missions. In 1985, contamination and structural loading concerns associated with return to Earth aboard the shuttle eliminated the concept of ground return from the program. NASA decided that on-orbit servicing might be adequate to maintain HST for its 15- year design life. A three year cycle of on-orbit servicing was adopted. The two HST servicing missions in December 1993 and February 1997 were enormous successes. Future servicing missions are tentatively planned for mid-1999 and mid-2002. Contingency flights could still be added to the shuttle manifest to perform specific tasks that cannot wait for the next regularly scheduled servicing mission (and/or required tasks that were not completed on a given servicing mission).
British-born Michael Foale and Swiss Claude Nicollier carried out the delicate operation of installing a new computer as they flew over Australia at an altitude of about 600km (360 miles) on Thursday.
:->
I thought AIR was required to fly!
Orbited is the right word - nothing ruins a good science story than bad reporting. Some of these science writers need to learn how to pay attention to detail...
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A man who wants nothing is invincible
And does anyone know what kind of code they run? C? Assembler?
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Anonymous Coward
Notice how the media's not making a big deal out of this. I suppose you could argue that successes just don't sell as many newspapers as failures. I think, however, that the mass media likes to manufacture issues by hyping up failures like the Mars mission and then making another story out of the public stir they create. Think about it; "NASA Mars Probe Lost" is just one story, but "Second NASA Failure This Year Causes Public Doubt About Future of Space Agency" can be a snowballing event -- shorts, 'talkback' segments, polls, comments from pundits, etc.
After all, when you're on 24 hours a day, you can't be expected to fill the time by just reporting what really happened when, where and why. That'd require too much actual reporting.
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Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Congratulations to NASA for a job well done. Kudos to Slashdot as well for not posting a Star Wars related story in over three days.
Now that the HST is back online, perhaps NASA might use it to examine the recent failed probe. I hope SOMEONE has thought to at least consider using it to look for the lost probe. If nothing else to see if it was destroyed on impact. I know it is normally used for deep space observing, but hey, I know I for one am at least curious as to the condition of the failed probe.
----- "A people that would sacrifice rights and freedom for a bit of safety deserve neither freedom nor safety."
how does NASA spell success after two complete failures with the mars probes? It seems like those operations might just set their standards a bit lower. Anyway it's not like they haven't messed up on the hubble project before. They remind me of a mechanic I once had, everything he fixed was a "complete success" until I got the car home and it still leaked oil or parts were accidentally left off or not hooked up (all work was way over priced, too). We need to hurry up and privatize NASA befor ethey thow away any more tax dollars.
If you privatize NASA, technological and procedural breakthrough's will all be constrained under patent and licensing constraints that will ultimately hinder progress.
For NASA to *cooperate* with private firms is good, but NASA must remain ultimately free of market constraints'
**>>BELCH
Sunday, 26 December, 1999, 05:09 GMT
Hubble returns to orbit
The newly repaired Hubble telescope has been
released into space by the shuttle Discovery.
Nasa called the mission, which included carrying
out a series of repairs to the telescope, a total
success. French astronaut Jean-Francois Clervoy used theshuttle's mechanical arm to gently lift the
12-tonne telescope from Discovery's cargo bay and send it into orbit.
Discovery astronauts successfully completed the
repairs on Christmas Eve during their third
spacewalk of the flight. US astronauts John Grunsfeld and Steven Smith installed a new radio transmitter, data recorder and steel shields to protect Hubble's exterior.
Nasa's main observatory on the universe has
been out of commission since mid-November,
when it shut itself down. Two marathon spacewalks earlier this week replaced Hubble's central computer, and it's navigational system which allows it to aim very precisely at distant stellar objects.
Hubble's new 'brain' British-born Michael Foale and Swiss Claude Nicollier carried out the delicate operation of installing a new computer as they flew over Australia at an altitude of about 600km (360
miles) on Thursday. Mr Foale, a software programming expert, directed the operation.
The Hubble's ageing "brain" was replaced
with one with three linked Intel 486 microprocessors. It will perform 20 times faster and has six times more memory than its predecessor - although it is less powerful than many home computers. A quick electrical check showed that all the connections were good.
WTF????
You gave this "Insightful"???
I would have rated it "Bollocks"
...that aliens shot down the Mars probes.
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Good for NASA! Now they need to release a few pictures to the media to convince the world that their streak of bad luck is over.
I'm just glad I don't need to do a spacewalk to upgrade the machines I admin!
Congratulations to the team members for accomplishing this difficult mission so perfectly!
We Swiss people of course are proud of Claude Nicollier beeing part of the team.
They'll use their favourite spelling, thank you very much mr. uncivilized non-english barbarian.
The hubbles computer runs off a 486 Intel CPU. I am aware that the CPU had to meet certian standards like radiation shielding and emp resistant. But aren't there better CPU's out there that meet those standards? It seems to me that NASA (which can spend billions on failed mars missions) might have the money to pay for a better type of CPU (should one exist).
Is it progress if a cannibal uses a fork?
imagine if we used the hubble for beowulf clusters :)
More wallpaper for me!
Seriously, even if you don't appreciate the scientific level of what NASA is doing. You can get some really awsome images from them. Check out NASA's awsome collection of images, which have aver generous copying policy.
------ 24.5% slashdot pure
And their favourite cApItAlIsAtIoN too?
I'll throw in my totally baseless guess: Perhaps they want to compress the data stream some [more?]
Can you explain to my daughter why her band classes were cut last year cause of budget problems?
if people's excuse for all the money NASA sucks out of the economy is the technological advances it creates, then isn't it a very bad idea to use outdated tech, when much better stuff is available?
maybe if they weren't using outdated tech on all those mars missions, they wouldn't have wasted all that money.
quite the tradeoff. billions in tax dollars for nothing more than some desktop wallpaper that anybody could make with a couple of photoshop filters.
Probably because your district voted to lower property taxes or because the school administrator couldn't care less about music programs. (my sympathies to your daughter, btw. I don't know where i'd be without my experiences with band)
But anyways, the telescope cost $3 billion spread across, what, 20 years? Believe it or not, thats chicken feed compared to the sacred cow entitlement programs. Programs which account for >70% of the federal budget, but yet cannot be cut in the slightest for political lobby pressures.
Tom
Excellent work NASA! Keep up the good work!
Each time the space bus goes up it costs $500M + the cost of the cargo.
Now that Hubble is repaired and according to earlier comments can see near the beginning or first "light", what do we expect Hubble to "see"? Is there an "edge" or "limit" to the extent that Hubble can "see" ... whether x-ray or infared or visible spectrum ... what to see ... is this the first "light"? How about a topic on "extended" Hubble for some comments on how far can we see?
CGurganus