According to NASA officials, the Hubble Space Telescope will switch to a new operational paradigm that attempts to keep the space observatory from going through periods of incapacity to view the universe.
For thirty-four years, the illustrious telescope that has taken breath-taking pictures of the universe has been powered by six gyroscopes.
During a press conference on Tuesday, Mark Clampin, the director of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate’s Astrophysics Division, explained that these gyroscopes, also known as gyros, are a component of a system that regulates and chooses the direction the telescope is aimed in.
The gyros track the telescope’s movement when it changes course to take pictures of exoplanets, galaxies, and other celestial objects, ensuring that Hubble is positioned correctly for the subsequent scientific study, according to Clampin.
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The gyros on the telescope have aged and needed to be replaced. During the final Hubble servicing trip in 2009, astronauts aboard a NASA space shuttle installed six new gyros.
Three of the gyros have continued to function over time, causing no alteration to the telescope’s operation up until this point.
Inaccurate data interfere with Hubble One of the three surviving gyroscopes has been giving false readings for the past six months, Clampin added, which has repeatedly forced the telescope to enter “safe mode” and stop making observations of the cosmos.
The Hubble Space Telescope’s project manager, Patrick Crouse, of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said that while the Hubble team has been able to reset the gyro from the ground, these solutions have only been temporary, and the issue has been more common.
Following yet another malfunction involving the malfunctioning gyro on May 24, the telescope was placed in safe mode, and it is still in that state, according to Crouse.
The Hubble team chose to use just one gyro to operate Hubble after giving it some thought, and Clampin stated that the other gyro that is still operational will be saved for use in the future.
The idea was developed more than 20 years ago, and the crew has long contemplated moving the telescope to one-gyro mode to extend its longevity.
According to Clampin, “we feel that this is our best strategy to support Hubble science through this decade and into the next since the majority of the space observations will be completely unaffected by this change.”
According to the NASA, Hubble operated in one-gyro mode briefly in 2008 and in two-gyro mode from 2005 to 2009, with no discernible effects on the caliber of science observations.
The future of Hubble’s observations
According to Crouse, there are some restrictions with the change.
This decreases the efficiency and flexibility of the telescope since it takes longer to shift and latch onto the things it is observing.
Additionally, although Hubble has historically hardly seen such targets, it will not be able to follow moving objects that are closer to Earth than Mars, according to Crouse.
Both the telescope and the ground equipment that transmits data to Hubble will now be reconfigured by the team.
By mid-June, Hubble should be back to regular observations.
A feasibility study was previously conducted to determine whether business partners could help Hubble reach a higher orbit, extending its operational lifetime and preventing the observatory from being forced to make a controlled reentry into Earth’s atmosphere in the 2030s.
According to Clampin, the agency is considering the criteria and hazards of such a move but is not currently pursuing any plans for a “reboost.”
According to Clampin, Hubble is anticipated to continue operating until the middle of the 2030s, with its studies of the cosmos serving as a supplement to the research being done by the James Webb Space Telescope and other unlaunched telescopes.
“We believe Hubble to be a very capable observatory, and we do not see it as being on its last legs,” Crouse stated.
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