Engineers for NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope were stumped by more technical problems this week.  Glitches and human errors have plagued the telescope since its launch eighteen years ago.

 

            “It seems like Hubble always has some sort of problem,” said Courtney Sutcliff, a former astronomy student at the University of Washington.  She also remarked that some believe the time has come to retire the telescope, which was originally intended to be used only a few years.

 

            Last month, Hubble’s main computer crashed.  The computer is designed to send extensive data to Earth.  After weeks of work, Hubble engineers were able to switch the telescope to its backup computer, only to be immediately surprised by another setback.

 

            The new problem is a broken power unit on one of Hubble’s cameras.  The telescope is famous for capturing spectacular space photos, like this crab nebula picture from NASA, back to Earth.

 

            Art Whipple, a Hubble manager, told eFlux Media that “The soonest we [NASA] would be back doing full science would be late [this] week.”  He went on to say that the Hubble team is currently deciphering and organizing massive amounts of data that the backup computer is downloading.  The computer is working in overdrive to make up for time lost while the telescope was out of order.

 

            The Hubble Space Telescope has been serviced by astronauts four times, and has so far cost around $6 billion to build and maintain.

 

            If you want to know more, NASA.com has extensive information on the Hubble Space Telescope.