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http://www.sciencenewsfo rkids.o rg/2008/10/tro ubles-with-hubble-2/

Troubles with Hubble

By Susan Gaidos / October 14, 2008 If your f amily car breaks down on the road, a roadside assistance crew will be sent immediately to make repairs. But how do you tackle emergency repairs on an orbiting space telescope hundreds of miles f rom Earth? T hats a problem that some NASA engineers are now working to solve. Af ter 18 years of capturing images of nearby galaxies and newborn stars, the hard-working Hubble Space Telescope mysteriously stopped sending data in late September. T he timing of the f ailure was unf ortunate. It occurred just weeks bef ore a shuttle mission to upgrade the aging space telescope was scheduled to blast of f . T hat mission is now on hold until early next year while NASA engineers f ind ways to address the telescopes recent problem. T he problem stems f rom a f ailure inside a data f ormatting unit, a device designed to receive scientif ic data f rom the telescopes f ive main instruments and transmit this data to Earth. Without this unit, the Hubble is unable to capture and beam down inf ormation that is needed to produce the telescopes breath-taking deep space images. NASA was prepared f or such an emergency, though, and had stowed a copy of the f ormatting unit onboard. However, immediately switching over to this backup unit could create new problems, says Preston Burch, Hubble manager at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

For starters, the switchover would require engineers to electronically reconnect all f ive main instruments. T he change might also blow a f use or cause additional f ailures f or Hubble.

Wo rking in an und e rwate r tank that mimic s the fe e ling o f we ig htle s s ne s s in s p ac e , as tro naut Dre w Fe us te l p rac tic e s us ing a p o we r s c re wd rive r s p e c ially d e s ig ne d fo r Hub b le re p air. Cre d it: J CE/NASA

At NASAs Johnson Space Center, astronauts practice repairs on an underwater, life-size replica of the Hubble Space Telescope. JSC/NASA Instead, the Earth-bound engineers plan to tackle the job slowly. T he f irst step, says Burch, is to practice making the switch on a replica of the Hubble system located on the ground at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center. If all goes well on Earth, the engineers will then attempt to switch to the duplicate unit onboard the real Hubble in space. But even if it works, the switch to the duplicate system would be a short-term solution, Burch says. To ensure that Hubble keeps going as long as possible, NASA plans to send some roadside assistance to space. Astronauts may carry a duplicate data f ormatting unit into space when the recently delayed servicing mission launches next year. By replacing the f ailed data f ormatting unit with a new gadget, a spare unit could remain on Hubble in case of another f ailure, Burch says. Still, this is no ordinary emergency repair job. T he astronauts will have to replace the unit during a twohour spacewalk 612 kilometers (380 miles) above Earth. Going Deeper: