WASHINGTON, June 25: One of the main cameras on the aging Hubble Space Telescope, known for its unparalleled views of distant galaxies and infant stars, has stopped working and engineers are studying the problem, scientists said on Saturday.
One of three cameras in the Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys shut down on Monday after indicating that power supply voltages had exceeded their limits, the Space Telescope Science Institute said in a statement.
The exact cause of the problem and a potential fix were under investigation, the statement said.
The other two cameras were still operating and engineers were hopeful the problem could be fixed from the ground, an agency scientist said.
“At this point, the ACS is in a safe configuration and further analysis is ongoing,” the statement said.
The cameras were installed on Hubble by astronauts on the space shuttle Columbia during a 2002 repair and service mission, one of four repair missions to the telescope named for astronomer Edwin Hubble.
Other shuttle missions to correct problems and replace aging equipment occurred in 1993, 1997 and 1999.
The telescope, launched in 1990, orbits above the distorting effects of Earth’s atmosphere, enabling clearer views of astronomical objects.
Hubble needs new batteries for power and new gyroscopes to keep it steady and let it point at specific celestial features.—Reuters
