The Hubble Space Telescope should be operating soon, after going dark in mid-June. NASA had to perform a very tricky, remote repair job that went successfully. For an entire month, astronomical viewing was halted.
The space agency first thought the 1980s-era computer was the reason for the problem. When they fired up the backup payload computer, it also failed, so they ruled out the computer as the culprit. On Thursday, the engineers switched to the backup equipment and the crucial payload computer kicked in. If everything goes well, NASA expects the orbiting observatory to resume operating today.
In 2008 a similar switch was done as the older system failed. The Hubble was launched in 1990 and has taken over 1.5 million observations of the universe. There have been five repair missions in its lifetime, and the last fix was in 2009. The James Webb Telescope is expected to be launched by this year’s end. NASA will launch this model as the Hubble’s successor.’
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