by iamlucky13 » Wed May 13, 2009 12:48 am
It's currently operating, but not at full capacity. It was offline for several weeks in the past year because it's primary science computer (which handles data TX) failed. Migrating to the backup computer, which is identically redundant, but booted down, took a large part of that time. That failure actually delayed the current servicing mission, which was originally scheduled for October of 2008, so they could prep the ground spare of the computer system for launch so Hubble would have a functional and a backup computer onboard after the servicing mission.
The servicing mission is also replacing one of the cameras with a newer, more sensitive version, as well as one of the spectrographs. They'll be fixing another camera and a spectrograph that are offline due to electrical faults, replacing the aging batteries, and replacing all six of the gyroscopes that handle the aiming of Hubble. The batteries and gyroscopes are parts expected to wear out over time, and will likely be the limiting factor in Hubble's final end-of-life. Lastly, they're adding a docking grapple so when Hubble does die, a de-orbiting module can be launched on a cheap, unmanned rocket to de-orbit it in a controlled manner.
It's currently operating, but not at full capacity. It was offline for several weeks in the past year because it's primary science computer (which handles data TX) failed. Migrating to the backup computer, which is identically redundant, but booted down, took a large part of that time. That failure actually delayed the current servicing mission, which was originally scheduled for October of 2008, so they could prep the ground spare of the computer system for launch so Hubble would have a functional and a backup computer onboard after the servicing mission.
The servicing mission is also replacing one of the cameras with a newer, more sensitive version, as well as one of the spectrographs. They'll be fixing another camera and a spectrograph that are offline due to electrical faults, replacing the aging batteries, and replacing all six of the gyroscopes that handle the aiming of Hubble. The batteries and gyroscopes are parts expected to wear out over time, and will likely be the limiting factor in Hubble's final end-of-life. Lastly, they're adding a docking grapple so when Hubble does die, a de-orbiting module can be launched on a cheap, unmanned rocket to de-orbit it in a controlled manner.