Posted: Sat, Aug 7, 2004, 9:52 AM ET (1352 GMT)
One of four instruments on the Hubble Space Telescope has shut down because of a technical problem, NASA announced late Friday. The Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) went into a "suspended" mode on Tuesday, apparently because of a problem with a DC-DC power converter in the instrument. An investigation is underway to determine the cause of the problem and whether the instrument can be recovered. The other three instruments on Hubble are operating normally, and will perform additional observations while STIS is offline. A similar problem took place in May 2001 in the spacecraft's primary, or "Side 1" electronics, that was linked to a blown fuse; this week's problem was in the backup "Side 2" electronics that were used after the 2001 problem. STIS was installed on Hubble during the second servicing mission in 1997 and was not scheduled to be replaced on any future servicing mission. The future of Hubble has been debated since NASA decided in January to cancel the final shuttle servicing mission to the space telescope; the agency has recently looked into robotic alternatives.

Related Links:

•  MSNBC article
•  The Inquirer article
•  NASA press release