The Hubble Telescope has a malfunction. The matter is serious
The Hubble space telescope has been suspended. Reason? There was a failure on board the famous facility. NASA suspended all his work.
NASA has revealed for several days that one of humanity's most famous tools for exploring space runs in safe mode. All because of the failure of one of the gyroscopes that help him maintain spatial orientation. The device started sending incorrect readings, Due to this, all operations had to be suspended while NASA employees are trying to fix the problem.
One instead of three
The Hubble Telescope is getting old. He has been working for us in space for 34 years. And this is not his first problem with gyroscopes. In the past, pressurized air forcing dense fluid into the spaces with the ducts caused them to corrode and crack. The last service of these elements took place in 2009, during the STS-125 mission of the Atlantis space shuttle. During this mission the broken gyroscopes were replaced with gyroscopes filled with pressurized nitrogen instead of oxygen to prevent corrosion.
According to the Daily Mail, after the end of the space shuttle program in 2011 and the launch of the James Webb telescope in 2021, there are no plans to send additional crews to repair Hubble. But this doesn't have to mean the end for this device. The same gyroscope had problems in November. However, then the correct readings were restored again. It is also possible that the telescope will only work with one gyroscope at a time instead of three, as it was before. Interestingly, this is still only half of those installed in 2009. According to NASA, the equipment after repair will be able to operate until 2040.
