NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has been offline for nearly a month.
The telescope’s payload computer-a machine from the 1980s, used to control and monitor all the scientific instruments of the spacecraft- Suddenly stopped working on June 13. The engineer has Solve the problem Since then, but with little success.
however, NASA’s recent announcement Implied a glimmer of hope: The agency tweeted On Thursday, it successfully tested a program that can switch part of the telescope’s hardware to its spare components.
This may pave the way for the payload computer to come back online, thereby restarting Hubble’s scientific observations.
NASA reported that after additional preparation and review, the procedure may be carried out as early as next week. The telescope and scientific instruments on board are kept in working condition.
But according to Paul Hertz, director of NASA’s Astrophysics Department, this transition will be “risky.”
“You can’t actually change the hardware or get the voltage by yourself, so it’s really challenging,” He told the new scientist.
NASA has successfully switched Hubble to its backup hardware before
Hubble is the most powerful space telescope in the world; it orbits 353 miles above the earth.
On June 30, NASA announced that it had identified the root cause of the payload computer problem in the Hubble Scientific Instrument Command and Data Processing Unit (SI C&DH) where the computer is located.
“Some hardware on SI C&DH may be the culprit,” NASA says.
Spare hardware is pre-installed on the telescope. So it’s just a matter of switching to redundant hardware. But the agency added that engineers must practice in a simulator before attempting a tricky conversion from Earth.
NASA has used this type of operation to restart the Hubble Telescope in the past. In 2008, two weeks after a computer crash caused the telescope to go offline, Engineer successfully switched To redundant hardware.A year later, the astronauts repaired two damaged instruments in orbit-Hubble’s The fifth and final booking operation. (NASA currently has no way to send astronauts into the space telescope.)
It is critical for NASA to bring the 2 million (28 million rand) observatory back online.
“Hubble is one of NASA’s most important astrophysics missions. It has been in operation for more than 31 years, and NASA hopes it will last for many years,” the agency spokesperson said Tell Insider in June.
Hubble launched into orbit in 1990, Captured image The birth and death of stars, the discovery of new moons around Pluto, and the tracking of two interstellar objects that traverse the solar system. Hubble’s observations also allowed astronomers to calculate the age and expansion of the universe and observe galaxies that formed shortly after the Big Bang.
