NASA engineers
are finalizing plans to resuscitate the ailing Hubble Space Telescope, which has
been unable to beam home its trademark iconic images of the universe for weeks
due to equipment failure.
Hubble
engineers at the telescope's mission control center in Greenbelt, Md., have
spent the last few weeks since the Sept.
27 failure of the orbital observatory's main data transmission channel reviewing
procedures to switch to a backup system, with a final center meeting set for
today. Mission engineers also met Thursday discuss the plan, with top NASA officials
expected to give a final review on Tuesday.
"We are still
marching forward in our process," said Ed Campion, a spokesperson at NASA's
Goddard Space Flight Center, which oversees Hubble operations. "Right now, I
would characterize the things that came out of that meeting yesterday as positive
and we're planning on moving forward."
Hubble's
science silence stems from the loss
of the Side A channel in a device called a Control Unit/Science Data
Formatter, which failed for good last month after 18 years of service since the
space telescope's launch in 1990. There is a backup, Side B, but switching to that
channel is an arduous process that includes moving five separate systems to the
same string as well.
The failure
forced NASA to delay plans to launch seven
astronauts to Hubble aboard the space shuttle Atlantis on one
last service call on the orbital observatory. The shuttle was slated to
launch on Oct. 14, but will now lift off no earlier than early 2009.
"They are
taking a very detailed look at everything that is involved in making this
switchover to Side B," Campion said.
If top NASA
officials sign off on the systems switch on Tuesday, engineers could begin the
Side B activation as early as Wednesday morning, he added.
"It's a
pretty lengthy process," Campion said. "They've described this as being like a
40-some-hour process."
Meanwhile,
a separate team of engineers is continuing work to study a spare for the failed
data formatter that has been in storage at Goddard for the last two decades.
NASA wants
to ensure the spare unit is spaceworthy and in working order before including
it aboard the space shuttle Atlantis to be added among the other upgrades
planned for Hubble's last overhaul. The agency is expected to brief the public on its Hubble repair plan in a televised briefing on Tuesday at 12:30 p.m. EDT (1630 GMT).
Commanded
by veteran astronaut Scott Altman, Atlantis' astronaut crew plans to perform
five back-to-back spacewalks to install new cameras, replace aging batteries
and broken gyroscopes, upgrade Hubble's guidance system and add a docking ring
to the space telescope. The astronauts also plan to attempt to fix instruments
never designed for in-space repairs and hope to extend Hubble's mission through
at least 2013.
With
Atlantis' launch to Hubble delayed to next year, NASA has turned its attention
to the next shuttle flight - STS-126
aboard Endeavour. That mission is due to launch toward the International
Space Station on Nov. 14 to deliver new life support equipment and supplies designed
to allow the orbiting laboratory to expand to larger, six-person crews.
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