spacetoday.net: Glitches delay Hubble reactivation

Posted: Sat, Oct 18, 2008, 10:45 AM ET (1445 GMT)
Hubble Space Telescope (NASA)

Two problems encountered with switching the Hubble Space Telescope over to a backup science computer will delay the telescope's return to service until next week at the earliest, NASA officials said Friday. Telescope engineers started the process of transferring operations to the "Side B" backup science data handling system on Wednesday, and initial reports indicated that the switchover was going well. On Thursday, though, one Hubble instrument reported lower than normal voltages, followed by an interruption in communications between the science computer and the telescope's main computer, putting the telescope back into a protective safe mode. While NASA officials said they are still optimistic they'll be able to restore the telescope to normal scientific operations, the work required to deal with these problems will prevent the telescope from resuming operations until no sooner than late next week.