Hubble Space Telescope halts amid computer trouble - Fox News

The Hubble Space Telescope has been hit with computer trouble, with all astronomical viewing halted, NASA said Wednesday.

The orbiting observatory has been idle since Sunday when a 1980s-era computer that controls the science instruments shut down, possibly because of a bad memory board.

Flight controllers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland tried to restart the computer Monday, but the same thing happened.

If that works, the telescope will be tested for a day, before the science instruments are turned back on and observations can resume.

NASA plans to launch Hubble’s successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, in November

Scientists hope to have an overlap in orbit between Hubble and the considerably more advanced and powerful Webb

Back to 365NEWSX