NASA reported that the Hubble Space Telescope stopped working a week ago, on the evening of June 13, due to the breakdown of the memory module of the boards of the payload. Attempts to eliminate the fault have so far been unsuccessful, so scientific research does not yet carry out scientific research. This is reported by the Astronomy NOW edition.
According to representatives of the space agency, the telescope itself and other scientific devices are in good condition. However, since the on-board computer of the payload is responsible for the management and coordination of scientific tools on board the apparatus, due to a failure to transmit signals to the main computer, all the scientific activities of the telescope ceased. Last Monday, June 14, experts tried to restart the system, but it was not possible to make it.
The reason to be considered in NASA, was the damage of one of the four modules of the 94 kilobyte solid-state memory modules, but to revive the telescope through switching to the backup module also did not work.
Computer with a payload, known as the “Standard Space Computer-1 NASA”, or NSSC-1, was developed in the 1980s and is part of the control unit and processing data obtained by scientific instruments of the telescope. This system is duplicated, that is, there is a backup copy of NSSC-1, but only one memory module always works, and three others are in standby mode.
As of June 18, engineers still conducted system diagnostics before trying to switch to backup computer. As the NASA statement says, the telescope’s scientific tools will remain in safe mode until the problem is solved.