It’s already been used far beyond its planned operational status and everything since then has been gravy.
It’s amazing that they’re able to find workarounds to keep it useful for scientific tests and analysis.
It’s still got a lot of good science left, with a decade of orbit to figure out how to get back to it for maintenance we could keep it running.
. “One-gyro mode actually returns Hubble to consistent science operations and it allows us to keep another gyro working…for potential future use.”
They even kept a backup.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
For more than 30 years, NASA’s iconic Hubble Space Telescope has been scouring the cosmos to look for ancient galaxies and dazzling nebulae.
The wear and tear of traveling through low Earth orbit is starting to show on the aging telescope, forcing it to resort to using only one of its three remaining gyroscopes to determine its orientation.
NASA made the decision to transition Hubble to one-gyro mode after a series of issues with one of its three gyroscopes caused the telescope to repeatedly suspend its science operations, the space agency announced on Tuesday.
“We believe this is our best approach to support Hubble’s science through this decade and into the next,” Mark Clampin, director of the astrophysics division at NASA, said during a press briefing.
“One-gyro mode actually returns Hubble to consistent science operations and it allows us to keep another gyro working…for potential future use.”
Despite its downgraded status, NASA dismissed a proposal to raise Hubble to its initial altitude of 373 miles (600 km), allowing it to remain operational for a few more years.
The original article contains 511 words, the summary contains 177 words. Saved 65%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!