The observatory is sending images to Earth again, the department stressed
WASHINGTON, July 20. /TASS/. The Hubble Orbital Observatory has fully resumed its work and is sending images to Earth again. This was announced on Monday by the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
"The Hubble Space Telescope is back in business, exploring the near and far corners of the universe. Scientific instruments returned to full-fledged operation after troubleshooting, which suspended observations for more than a month, " the report says. According to NASA, scientific observations resumed in the afternoon on Saturday. New images sent by Hubble to Earth have been published on the website of the US Space Agency.
On Friday, the press service of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center reported that NASA engineers have successfully completed the procedure for switching the Hubble orbital observatory to work with a backup onboard computer, after part of the spacecraft's electronics failed in mid-June.
Scientific observations using Hubble instruments were completely stopped on June 13 of this year as a result of failures in the operation of the on-board computer of the telescope, which is responsible for executing commands and sending data to Earth.
A subsequent study of the diagnostic data showed that the cause of the failures was the failure of the system that controls the power supply for the entire computer. The first attempts to restore its operation ended unsuccessfully, which forced the mission management to make a decision to include Hubble's backup units capable of performing similar functions.
After working out the procedures for turning them on on Earth, NASA specialists last week sent a set of commands to Hubble, which switched the telescope to work with a backup onboard computer, whose power system works correctly.