The Hubble space telescope is in trouble according to the US Space Agency NASA.
The groundbreaking telescope main payload computer experienced issues in late June, and an attempt to switch to the backup computer has revealed the same glitch effects both systems.
NASA has been silent on the issue since issuing a statement on June 30th and Paul Hertz, director of NASA’s astrophysics division has stated that the team will now take a time to perform a ‘very deliberate’ analysis of the computer glitch before attempting to fix the issue.
The issue first came to light back on June 13th when an issue with the telescopes payload computer forced the scientific instruments onboard the space telescope into safe mode.
NASA is understood to have attempted to fix the issue between June 23rd and 24th so the telescope could begin scientific operations again.
However, it was not until NASA turned on the backup computer for the first time since it was installed in space 12 years ago that the severity of the problem became clear. Both primary and backup have the same error that effecting their onboard memory.
Hubble has been operational for 31 years and after a rocky start to operations has made huge contributions to our understanding of the cosmos. All we can do is hope that NASA can perform a quick fix of the issue to get the iconic telescope operational again.
