Hubble Servicing mission STS-125

[Mike]

Nasa has announced details of a challenging mission to "rescue" the Hubble Space Telescope.

Without the mission, the multi-billion dollar orbiting observatory is likely to fail in 2010 or 2011.

The upgrade will provide a massive boost to Hubble's capabilities, giving it greater sensitivity and a larger field of view.

The mission, by space shuttle Atlantis, will make Hubble 90 times more powerful than its original version.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7164139.stm

[Rick]

The date of the shuttle mission to repair and upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope should be confirmed in the next few weeks, Nasa says.

The flight is currently set for 28 August but the US space agency admits this will slip by four to five weeks.

Getting a new class of external fuel tank ready for the Atlantis orbiter's launch has taken longer than expected, Nasa explained.

The servicing mission should extend Hubble's lifetime to at least 2013.

More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7378238.stm

[Rick]

NASA preps Atlantis for Hubble mission
Endeavour also readied for possible rescue dash

Space shuttle Endeavour was yesterday rolled into the Kennedy Space Center's giant Vehicle Assembly Building, where technicians will clamp on its external tank and twin solid rocket boosters pending transfer to launch pad 39B some time next week.

More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/12/nasa_preps_atlantis/

[Rick]

The provisional launch date of space shuttle Atlantis on its STS-125 mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope has been postponed from 10 to 14 October due to the knock-on effects of Hurricane Ike.

Ike forced the closure of NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, resulting in a "lost week of training and mission preparation". NASA will confirm a concrete launch date for Atlantis on 3 October.

More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/25/atlantis_delay/

[mickw]

A serious equipment failure aboard the Hubble Space Telescope is preventing it from relaying data and images to scientists on Earth and may impact plans to launch a shuttle mission to overhaul the orbital observatory next month, NASA officials said Monday.

The glitch occurred Saturday in one of two sides of a device known as a Control Unit/Science Data Formatter that is responsible for sending data from Hubble to scientists on Earth, said Allard Beutel, a NASA spokesperson at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., where the shuttle Atlantis is being primed for an Oct. 14 launch.

More:   http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/080929-hubble-glitch.html

[MarkS]

I bet I know what's happened.  They've switched to optical communications for data transfer (see http://forum.orpington-astronomy.org.uk/index.php?topic=3855) and the seeing is bad today...

[Rick]

(...and the BBC finally catches up...)

A shuttle mission to service the Hubble telescope will be delayed because of a malfunction on the observatory.

The glitch means Hubble cannot format or store data from its instruments, nor transmit the information to Earth.

The US space agency, Nasa, had planned to send the Atlantis orbiter to repair and upgrade the telescope next month.

More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7642988.stm

[Rick]

(...and here's El Reg's stab...)

The Hubble space telescope has stopped transmitting data to Earth after a data formatting computer failed. A Shuttle service mission to the telescope has been delayed for four to six months while a replacement formatter and its installation procedures are prepared.

Hubble has a Science Instrument Control and Data Handling unit which manages the various instruments, receives commands from the ground control centre and sends scientific data and images to Earth. It relies on a microprocessor-based Control Unit/Science Data Formatter (CU/SDF) to receive data from the telescope's five main instruments and format it into packets for transmission.

More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/30/hubble_repair_mission/

[Rick]

US space agency (Nasa) officials say the orbiting Hubble telescope should come back online for full science operations on Friday.

The telescope suffered a glitch two weeks ago in a key electronics box that prevented it from routing data from its instruments to the ground.

Engineers will begin the process of switching Hubble over to a back-up system on Wednesday.

The officials told reporters they were confident the procedure would work.

More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7670412.stm

[Rick]

'Wakey wakey, Side B Control Unit'

NASA will this morning attempt to boot up the Hubble space telescope's redundant Side B Control Unit/Science Data Formatter (CU/SDF) following the failure last month of its operational Side A counterpart which blinded the 'scope.

The microprocessor-based CU/SDF is critical to Hubble's operation because it receives data from the telescope's five main instruments and formats it for transmission to Earth. The Side B back-up has not been fired up since Hubble went aloft 18 years ago, but if it can be coaxed into life, the flying eye could be back in action by the end of the week.

More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/15/hubble_back_up/

[Rick]

NASA is cautiously optimistic that Hubble will soon be back in action following a boot-up of the space telescope's venerable 486 back-up system.

Hubble was last month blinded by the failure of the Control Unit/Science Data Formatter (CU/SDF) in its operational Side A Science Instrument Command and Data Handling unit (SIC&DH), which packets data from the 'scope's five main instruments for transmission back to Earth. NASA decided to switch operations to the redundant Side B of the SIC&DH, which hadn't been fired up since an upgrade to the main computer back in 1999 empowered Hubble with a mighty Intel 80486 microchip.

More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/16/hubble_back_up/

[Rick]

In safe mode as NASA probes two systems 'anomalies'

The reactivation of the Hubble space telescope has been suspended while NASA probes a couple of systems 'anomalies' following the boot-up of its back-up computer system.

The venerable eye in the sky was last month blinded by the failure of the Control Unit/Science Data Formatter (CU/SDF) in its operational Side A Science Instrument Command and Data Handling unit (SIC&DH), which packets data from the 'scope's five main instruments for transmission back to Earth.

More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/20/hubble_trouble/

(Oh dear.)

[Rick]

NASA yesterday re-activated the Hubble space telescope's back-up computer system, following a few problems coaxing the venerable spare kit into life.

The decision to press the on button means Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 observations should resume tomorrow, followed by Advanced Camera for Surveys Solar Blind Channel observations later next week.

More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/24/hubble_fired_up/

[Rick]

The Hubble space telescope should resume science operations on Saturday, say Nasa officials.

Engineers have rebooted the computer which controls most science instruments aboard the orbiting observatory.

Hubble has been "blind" for three weeks after the failure of a command unit forced the telescope into "safe mode".

More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7687836.stm

[Rick]

The Hubble space telescope's main camera is back in action following the reactivation last week of the flying eye's backup computer system.

On Saturday morning, the 'scope's science computer commanded the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 out of the safe mode in which the instrument had been slumbering since a computer failure on 16 October. NASA adds: "Additional commanding allowed engineers on the ground to assess the instrument's state of health and verify the contents of the camera's microprocessor memory."

The first images from the camera will be "for data calibration purposes", and the agency hopes to release an image later this week.

More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/27/hubble_update/