NASA announced that the Hubble Space Telescope stopped working a week ago, on the evening of June 13, due to a failure of the memory module of the onboard payload computer. Attempts to fix the problem have so far been unsuccessful, so the device can not yet conduct scientific research. This is reported by the publication Astronomy Now.
According to representatives of the space agency, the telescope itself and other scientific instruments are in good condition. However, since the on-board payload computer is responsible for controlling and coordinating the scientific instruments on board the spacecraft, due to a failure in transmitting signals to the main computer, all scientific activity of the telescope stopped. Last Monday, June 14, specialists tried to restart the system, but they failed to do so.
The reason, according to NASA, was the damage to one of the four modules of solid-state memory with a capacity of 64 kilobytes, however, to revive the telescope through switching to a backup module also failed.
The payload computer, known as NASA's "Standard Space Computer-1," or NSSC-1, was developed in the 1980s and is part of the control and processing unit for the telescope's scientific instruments. This system is duplicated, that is, there is a backup copy of NSSC-1, but only one memory module is always running, and the other three are in standby mode.
As of June 18, engineers were still running system diagnostics before attempting to switch to a backup computer. NASA said in a statement that the telescope's scientific instruments will remain in safe mode until the problem is resolved.
Alexander Enikeev