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NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, flying 547 kilometres above the Earth’s surface and serving as the eyes of humanity to the vast space, has suspended its science operations. The telescope faced multiple synchronisation errors beginning from October 23 and has now entered into Safe Mode automatically, suspending its science instruments. On the morning of October 24, NASA scientists tried to troubleshoot the error and resumed the science operations, but Hubble reported multiple synchronisation errors again on October 25. The synchronisation features of the telescope provide the timing information to the various science instruments used for data collection and serve data requests. Without proper synchronisation, the instruments fail to correctly respond to the data requests and commands. “Mission team members are evaluating spacecraft data and system diagrams to better understand the synchronization issue and how to address it,” the space agency said on Tuesday, November 2, in a statement. According to NASA, mission scientists are also preparing to collect more data from the telescope, which is expected to take at least one week.
This is not the first time the 31-year-old space telescope has faced an error with its functioning. On June 13, Hubble’s payload computer stopped barring obstructing the continuous transmission of a keep-alive signal, and the equipment automatically went into safe mode. It took more than a month of hard work for NASA scientists to bring Hubble back online and resume its regular operations. The issue was identified to be an anomaly in the telescope’s power control unit, possibly because of its degradation over time.
If Hubble is unable to recover again, NASA would have to send a servicing mission that could replace the observatory’s decayed parts to extend its life. The last servicing mission to Hubble, in 2009, was believed to be its final one because of the telescope’s age, but there have been reports that another servicing might be in order.
With Hubble completing its 30 years and becoming a legacy spacecraft, its successor James Webb Space Telescope is ready to launch next month. Armed with the technological developments that happened after Hubble was launched, JWST will have 6.25 times more collecting area to catch signals, thanks to its primary mirror which is much larger than its predecessor Hubble. Hubble, however, is still expected to serve one more decade.
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