NASA engineers are still trying to fix the Hubble Space Telescope that hasn't been responding since September 27. The data formatting unit which relays information back to Earth has failed, only letting the telescope perform maintenance tasks. On October 15, engineers tried to tried to fix this problem by switching to the duplicate backup device which temporarily fixed the problem before engineers restored the device to its working state. The systems that were fixed included the Advanced Camera for Surveys, the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 and the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer. However an unidentified electrical problem, cut off power to the backup unit and caused the Hubble Telescope back into hibernation. Although an attempt at fixing the telescope wont take place until October 24, the telescope would need a space crew to completely restore the Hubble to its functioning state.
Hypothesis bases science because engineers needed to question what was wrong with the telescope, the perform routine checks to locate the problem and try to fix it.
The findings are importance to humans because now they know what is wrong with the Hubble and know the necessary actions that will need to take place in order to fix it.
Journal:Science News
Title: NASA Attempts to Wake Up Hubble
Author: Ron Cowen and Laura Sander
Page: 8
Date Published: November 8, 2008
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