NASA still trying to identify what took Hubble offline

On June 13, the Hubble Space Telescope took offline because of the error on the computer cargo, which managed the telescope scientific instrument. Since then, NASA has solved a familiar problem for many of us – with the additional pressure of irreplaceable hardware, in space, and around the same vintage as Komodor 64.

So far, controllers have managed to find out some things that are not wrong, based on improvement efforts that have not worked. The workers have narrowed their problems, but they did not show it. And at this point, the next step will depend on the right nature of the problem, so that it gets a diagnosis is a top priority.

If at first you don’t succeed …

The dispute hardware is part of the computer system, which contains control processors, communication buses, memory modules, and processors that format data and commands so that the controller can “speak” for all individual science instruments (The system also changes the data produced by the instrument standard format for transmission to earth). There is also a power supply that should keep everything operating on the right voltage.

Being a careful type, people who design Hubble provide backup controllers and three backup memory modules.

The initial indication showed a potential problem with the memory module, so the first effort to recover the Hubble involved trying to switch to one of the backups. The repair failed, showing that strange memory behavior was only a symptom of the problem elsewhere. Switch to backup reserves also failed to fix the problem; No matter the combination of controllers and memory modules used, Hubble cannot read or write to memory.

Given the information, the controller has turned their attention elsewhere. The main candidate is now a power supply, data bus, and data formatting processor. It is still possible to switch to backup controllers and memory, but the procedure sequence will be different based on what is wrong. In press releases, NASA refers to this process as “more complex and risky.”

But we also have reasons for optimism: Formforming data fails in 2008, and NASA managed to switch to backup, which operates until the service mission replaces failed hardware.

Given that NASA no longer has access to vehicles designed for service missions, getting functional reserves where it will be important if we want to squeeze more years from this one-of-of-type observatory.