Hubble Telescope functioning again after activation of backup gyro

By Georgina Torbet October 28, 2018

The Hubble Space Telescope has been responsible for some of the most stunning and informative pictures of deep space since it was launched in 1990, but the telescope suffered a failure on October 5 that placed it into safe mode. Now NASA has announced that the telescope has been fixed and will return to normal operations.

The failure occurred due to a problem with one of the six gyros which measure the speed at which the spacecraft turns. The Hubble instruments had to be deactivated when the third gyro malfunctioned, which caused the telescope to have problems with turning to new directions and locking on to new targets. Fortunately, there was a backup gyro onboard the spacecraft which the NASA team was able to activate remotely. Although the backup gyro was activated the day after the failure, there were issues with the data that it was sending, as it suggested that the craft was rotating far faster than it actually was.

It took three weeks to rectify the problem with the backup gyro, during which time the NASA scientists commanded the craft to perform various turns and maneuvers, and switched the gyro between different operational modes. The scientists believe that this fixed the problem by clearing a blockage between parts inside the gyro which was causing the inaccurate readings. With the gyro operating effectively, NASA then performed more tests to ensure that the gyro was stable and installed additional safeguards should the problem arise again in the future. The gyro was recalibrated by setting the telescope to rotate to point at various locations in the sky and by instructing it to lock on to targets, all of which were performed effectively.

The last stage of fixing the telescope was reactivating the instruments which had been powered down, and checking that it was sending back data correctly. All went well, and the telescope started transmitting data back to Earth for the first time since the problem arose on October 5.

Now the gyro is running correctly and the instruments have been reactivated, so Hubble can resume its data collection, capturing beautiful images of space objects.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Georgina Torbet

Space Writer

Georgina is the Digital Trends space writer, covering human space exploration, planetary science, and cosmology. She…

Space

James Webb telescope captures the gorgeous Ring Nebula in stunning detail

JWST/NIRcam composite image of the Ring Nebula. The images clearly show the main ring, surrounded by a faint halo and with many delicate structures. The interior of the ring is filled with hot gas. The star which ejected all this material is visible at the very centre. It is extremely hot, with a temperature in excess of 100,000 degrees. The nebula was ejected only about 4000 years ago. Technical details: The image was obtained with JWST's NIRCam instrument on August 4, 2022. Images in three different filters were combined to create this composite image: F212N (blue); F300M (green); and F335M (red).

A new image from the James Webb Space Telescope shows the stunning and distinctive Ring Nebula -- a gorgeous structure of dust and gas located in the constellation of Lyra. This nebula is a favorite among sky watchers as it faces toward Earth so we can see its beautiful structure, and because it is visible throughout the summer from the Northern Hemisphere. It is different from the Southern Ring nebula, which Webb has also imaged, but both are a type of object called a planetary nebula.

Located just 2,600 light-years away, the Ring Nebula is a structure of dust and gas that was first observed in the 1770s, when it was thought to be something like a planet. With advances in technology, astronomers realized it was not a planet, but rather a cloud of dust and gas, and thanks to highly detailed observations by space telescopes like Hubble and Webb, scientists have been able to see more of its complex structure. The nebula isn't a simple sphere or blob, but is rather a central, football-shaped structure surrounded by rings of different material.

Space

Hubble watches an extreme exoplanet being stripped by its star

This artist's illustration shows a planet (dark silhouette) passing in front of the red dwarf star AU Microscopii.

Of the many strange exoplanets discovered to date, one of the most extreme has to be a world called AU Mic b. This Neptune-sized planet orbits close enough to its star that a year there lasts just over a week, and it is bombarded by dramatic flares from its host star which cook the planet with radiation.

Recently, Hubble observed this system to learn more about the relationship between the exoplanet and its star, technically called AU Microscopii. The planet's hydrogen atmosphere is blown away by radiation from the star, but there were confusing findings that seemed to show that no atmosphere was being lost at some times, but significant amounts of atmosphere were lost at other times.

Space

Hubble observes a galaxy that hosted an epic supernova explosion

The tranquil spiral galaxy UGC 12295.

This week's image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows a stunning view of a spiral galaxy called UGC 12295, located nearly 200 million light-years away. This galaxy appears face-on from Earth, meaning we can get a great view of its structure and spiral arms -- captured here using Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 instrument.

The galaxy UGC 12295 is best known for being the location of a supernova observed in 2015. A supernova occurs when a massive star, much bigger than our sun, runs out of fuel and comes to the end of its life. As the star has less and less fuel and no longer produces as much outward pressure from the fusion occurring at its core, the gravity pushing in on the star takes over and causes the star to collapse. This collapse happens so fast that it creates a shockwave that causes the star's outer layers to explode, an event called a supernova.