Hubble telescope has broken camera for visible spectrum
The Hubble telescope has a non-working camera. It concerns a camera that is suitable for the visible spectrum: the light that can be seen with the human eye. The other instruments of the telescope still function normally.
The broken camera is the Advanced Camera for Surveys, which astronauts installed in 2002 during a maintenance mission. According to NASA, this instrument has stopped working for several days after an error was detected during a normal start-up procedure. It would be an issue where the software did not load correctly. NASA technicians have collected diagnostic information and are trying to find the cause and a solution based on that.
NASA emphasizes that the telescope is still functioning normally. The remaining instruments still work ‘nominal’, namely the Wide Field Camera 3, the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph and the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph.
The Hubble telescope is a joint project of NASA and ESA and was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990. In principle it was intended that the telescope would be operational for about fifteen years, but that has now been almost thirty years. The last maintenance mission took place in 2009 and was supposed to extend the service life by about five years, but the necessary years have already been added.
The current non-functioning Advanced Camera for Surveys also had a problem in 2007, when the instrument’s power supply went out. This shortcoming was fixed during the 2009 maintenance mission. Last year there were also problems with Hubble, after a gyroscope stopped working.
Incidentally, there were already problems with the Hubble telescope immediately after its launch in 1990. Sharp pictures could not be taken at the time because the primary mirror had a slightly misshaped surface at the microscopic level. This problem was solved by repairs and a corrective element, the Costar. This instrument contains five pairs of corrective mirrors that negate the effect of the deviation of the primary mirror.