Hubble's Advanced Camera Suspends Operations 113
helio writes "The Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) went offline on June 19, 2006. The cause is yet undetermined, although engineers suspect that the culprit may be a bad transistor in the ACS's electronic control board or possibly a memory corruption event due to energetic particle bombardment. Since a backup electronic controller is available for service, this incident is not very likely to lead to the end of the Hubble's Advanced Camera in any event. But, before any attempt to reactivate the camera, engineers are cautiously evaluating and isolating the probable cause of this incident in order to avoid any further incident."
Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:5, Insightful)
Besides- once we have a permanent presence on the Moon, we'll be able to set up telescopes much more powerful and easy to maintain than Hubble ever was.
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:5, Interesting)
And yes, I think the White House is largely responsible for this situation. When Bush first started talking big about manned space flight, I honestly thought that this was the one thing he might do to turn his administration from an unqualified disaster into a major success; long after stupidities like the Iraq war have faded into history, a thriving human presence in space would be a great legacy. But nope, it was just election-year hype. As usual.
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:1)
Imagine where things would be right now if they put even a miniscule portion of the money for the war on Iraq (currently almost $300 billion US) into NASA.
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:2)
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:4, Insightful)
"Mars--the backup planet, the backup plan."
Mars is one of the least hospitable and most difficult to reach places you could hope to find. Sure, Mars is probably the Club Med of all the other planets and satellites in the solar system but to believe truly that it is a sensible safe place to escape is nonsense. The least hospitable places on Earth are still way, way less lethal than Mars. That's right--lethal. Mars is not kind to even microbial life. We've come up with a lot of creative ways to peek around Mars looking for signs of it and the best we've found is the possibility that it was there but died a really, really long time ago. That's a nice big "No Trespassing" sign. Violators are killed on sight.
Contrast with Earth, on whose worst day life still flourished. Believe it or not, there have been some pretty shitty days down here, like the Cambrian-Ordovician [wikipedia.org] extinction, the Ordovician-Silurian [wikipedia.org] extinction, the Permian-Triassic [wikipedia.org] extinction (80+% extinction in a million years, not bad), our favorite the Cretaceous-Paleogene [wikipedia.org] extinction, and our own Holocene [wikipedia.org] extinction. When the shit goes down on Earth it is still far, far more habitable than any extra-terrestrial location. Animal life requires other life if it wants to survive. Starting from scratch on a lifeless planet is much harder (and strikes me as much less sensible) than sticking around where life has clung with tenacity for the last 3.5 billion years.
The exception to this would be a planetary catastrophe that left no room for doubt that Earth would be less habitable than Mars is now--that would result in the total loss of liquid water, the burn up of all atmospheric oxygen, the loss of the Earth's magnetic field, the death and extinction of all life (from microbes on up), and the tipping point of sunlight being blocked from reaching the ground. Following this it would have to be more difficult to use resources available to eke out survival on Earth than it would be to use resources to reach another planet and start anew there.
One point that's often brought up is that if we start now we can have people living sustainably on Mars who could carry on without the need for Earth, thus preserving our human legacy. I'm of the belief that when we are sufficiently technologically advanced to achieve such a result that a planet-wide catastrophe will be easily weathered right here using that same technology.
It's like the guy saying string theory [slashdot.org] is eating up valuable resources that could be used elsewhere and everyone else saying it's too fun to give up. Dreams of colonizing Mars and living out our Ray Bradbury fantasies are too fun to give up, but don't bandy about the idea that it's anything remotely serious. At least string theory has some sensible math to back it up; there's little that's sensible about martian life as the human-kind "backup plan."
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:2)
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:3, Interesting)
No one's proposing that we attempt to breathe the atmosphere on Mars.
It would be an interesting and valuable laerning exercise setting up a semi-independent colony on Mars. We need some nuclear powered rockets first.
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, Venus is closer, warmer and with a substantial atmosphere. Granted, it's a hell on traditional materials and space technology, but the atmosphere offers significant protection as well as a plentiful source for oxygen (carbon dioxide). On the downside is the weak magnetic field, but Mars offers nothing in that department either.
It's easier to focus on Mars because the planet has been more thoroughly explored, and the lack of atmosphere me
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:2)
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:2)
How will you fix the gravity (1/3 Earth standard, approximately)?
Where will you get the protective magnetic field, so that you don't get roasted next time Father Sun decides to blow his nose?
Where will you get the ozone layer to protect from UV?
Where will you get the rest of the atmosphere to provide additional protection?
It's only the latter two points that have -- and then only very vaguely with hand-waving regarding water, CO2 and O3 -- been covered
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:2)
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:2)
It's a slim hope at the best of times, and the problems I've mentioned (or "questions") are fundamental to terraforming the planet.
Perhaps your attitude comes from a misunderstanding; when I write "terraforming", I'm writing about making the planet pe
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:2)
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:2)
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:2)
Right now, skeletal damage a big enough hurdle just for getting the first batch of astronauts to Mars, but the solution sketches are sound; using centrifugal effect as artificial gravity, exercising regularly and get
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:2)
I believe the intent is to have an "Earth-like" environment...mean we can grow crops and breath the air. Because of radiation, I do not believe the intent is to live under the open sky.
It seems you have uniquely redefined the term, "terrforming". Any environment which can
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:2)
I've read that skeletal issues are a concern for those making the trip, but I haven't read that it's a problem exclusive to the trip, as you imply.
Unfortunately, none of us can back up these claims with "hard" research, since there has been no long-term studies on the effects of a low gravity environment on the skeletal system; the current studies are about microgravity environments, which is
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:3, Informative)
If by "warmer" you mean "melts lead", yeah, it's warmer. Space probes can't survive on Venus. People definitely can't.
But Venus's biggest problem is related: it doesn't rotate nearly fast enough.
You want an ideal planet? Smack Mars into Venus. Unsurprisingly, that's how Earth started out.
but a bonus point is that as an inner planet
That's more of a downside: I don't think liquid water can survive on Venus already for any long period of time due
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:1)
But we know it doesn't have oxygen, liquid water, life, or an environment that would support industry. Like I said, Mars is the Club Med of other planets but on its best day and Earth's worst it's still a death trap compared to Earth.
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:2)
Humans survive in Antarctica and the deep sea solely by means of a metric buttload of technology. Take it away and they die in seconds or minutes. Mars is different only in degree, not kind.
Yes, survival in Antarctica is hard, but the equipment necessary to do it has been around for many decades. For the cost of getting 7 people into orbit for a week, we could build a REALLY nice hotel in Antarctica complete with indoor sauna and swimming pool. For the cost of getting 7 people to Mars, we could run that
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:5, Insightful)
Life does not equal humans. There are plenty of ways that life could stick around and still eradicate all humans. Or all human civilization. Either or, because without civilization, we're just another species waiting to be extinguished. And human civilization is really fragile.
While it may seem less sensible, starting from scratch on another planet has several advantages.
The third point is really the big one. Just look at our pathetic attempts at ecological engineering - they're jokes. We usually end up constantly screwing things up. But I wouldn't discount the second one, either: Mars has a pretty big advantage in terms of depth of its gravity well.
Plus, from a very practical standpoint, you could also think of it as the start of interplanetary zoning laws. It'd be real nice to offload really crappy industry to Mars, after all.
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:1)
But humans require life to exist. This is a point I made which you chose to overlook. Animals require other life to exist and when faced with the option of a) hang around where life exists even through extreme protracted period
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:2)
I didn't overlook it. We're also the only organism capable of establishing new life in an area. We tried once already, halfheartedly, with Biosphere 2. It was a failure because, well, there wasn't any incentive for the scientists. It was a PR deal, and it failed. Think a scientist will work like crazy to fix a giant PR move? Not likely. Think a scientist will work like crazy to fix a habitat supporting him? Yes.
You also hav
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:2)
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:1)
I think "look, don't touch" is better for now.
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:2)
And the reason the maintenance was cancelled isn't because Bush didn't like science class in high school, its because (in case you don't read the new
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:2, Interesting)
Ummm... that's just wrong. Do you have any idea how many papers have been written citing Hubble data and how many discoveries it has made!?
There are people talking about Hubble data all the time and will continue to do so long into the future.
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:2, Informative)
That's why I have this [nasa.gov] on my personalized Google. Granted they're not all Hubble images, but there's certainly a significant number of photos [hubblesite.org] for your perusal.
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:2)
With any luck, other nations will fill this vacuum.
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:5, Funny)
Hubble servicing project (tentatively STS-125) scheduled for 2008, as per Wikipedia [wikipedia.org].
But don't let that get in the way of your ignorant, uninformed, nonsensical political rant.
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:4, Informative)
That reference came from a Washington Post article in April, 2005. Since that time, NASA has had their budget cut for almost all science missions that have nothing to do with putting man on Mars.
But don't let that get in the way of your ignorant, uninformed, nonsensical political rant.
There was nothing in my post that was not factually based. The reality is that given the budget management of the nation, there is simply not enough money to do basic science missions if we send people to Mars.
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:5, Informative)
That being said, the Hubble servicing mission is still in the cards and long lead work is being performed to support it. It's almost certain it will be flown. In fact, the NASA web page for servicing mission 4 [nasa.gov] was updated just a little over a week ago.
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:2)
It is my understanding that funding for this mission is in doubt. The White House already cut funding for this servicing mission once back in 2005 and NASA was able to find the impetus to recover, but with the current NASA budget, I am being told by friends at JPL that it is not looking good.
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:3, Informative)
Ironically enough, the Constellation program manager (Jeff Hanley) cut his teeth on Hubble as a Payloads officer in Mission Control. When the original SM4 mission was cancelled, he posted this [google.com]
to sci.astro.hubble.
Instrument is back on-line now? (Score:2)
"SIGNIFICANT EVENTS:
ACS Transition to Operate1
Ops Request 17802-0 was completed at 173/21:11:12, successfully
transitioning ACS from Suspend to its Operate1 state. In this state,
ACS normal engineering data collection can be observed."
From:
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.astro.hubble/br owse_frm/thread/402c960a631ad339 [google.com]
After this message on June 20:
"SIGNIFICANT EVENTS:
The ACS suspended at 170/17:15:25z. An Ops Briefing was held at 6 pm
on June 19,2006.
At 170/17:15:25 the ACS 715 and ACS 7
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:1)
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:2)
OK, how do you think having a different president in office at the time of this mission is going to benefit Bush? You make cute little statement as if someone has something to seriously lose or gain by who's in office at the time of the mission. Now it would be interesting if you could back this up with more than just blind bashing lip service.
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:1)
We're not talkiing about benefitting Bush.
Different people in power = different spending priorities. Perhaps the next president will spend more on Hubble. If not, well, a mission can still be cancelled.
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:2)
You've never really been involved in the budgeting and project planning of a large organization or you'd be embarrassed to say anything like this.
Not to mention the fact that it will be a Bush budget still in effect during the 2008 year.
And also to not mention the fact that in all truth the NASA budget [wikipedia.org] hasn't suffered a bit under Bush.
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:2)
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:1)
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:2)
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:2, Funny)
But don't let that get in the way of your ignorant, uninformed, nonsensical political rant.
Hey- this place wouldn't be the same without uninformed, nonsensical political rants! Don't scare him off! I need this place- I can't bring myself to go back to Doonesbury...
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:2, Informative)
But don't let that get in the way of your ignorant, uninformed, nonsensical political rant.
Budget cuts and safety concerns were the reasons given for cancellation of the 2006 repair mission, and any future such missions are currently speculative possibilities "under consideration." http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/future/ [hubblesite.org] has more on this, as does http://hubble.nasa.gov/ [nasa.gov].
But don't let actual facts get in the
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:1)
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:5, Informative)
IIRC NASA actually budgeted all three but only two got funds. Then when funding was restored for SM4 a few years later, we had all the problems with STS which all of a sudden meant going to Hubble was "unsafe". We knew the HST was slowly dying and that we only had 2 out of 4 gyros (not same problem as this article) that were good and one more that was "flaky". If we lost one of the good gyros we could rework the software to account for the flakiness of the 3rd gyro, but lose two and HST shuts down as you no longer have attitude control to point the instruments. The bad thing was all of these gyros came from the same batch from the same company. An earlier service mission had replaced two bad ones that failed earlier but the new ones themselves are now failing. Last caclulations I recall the HST might make it to sometime in 2009 or early 2010 before it fails, but that was under "nominal" conditions.
It was NOT GWB's fault, the decisons were made by Congress not wanting to fund NASA to the level where they could do all three, HST, STS, and ISS. Remember ALL spending Bills MUST orginate in the House of Representatives, then be approved by both houses of Congress and the President. It also doesn't help that NASA's budget gets lumped into bills that fund other things like HUD and Veterans so it often gets short shafted as we can't spend LESS money on Social project or Veteran's benefits so we can so space.
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:3, Insightful)
500 million a pop (last report, probably much higher today)to shoot off a shuttle, and even then, you guys rarely get around to actually doing it, to busy spending money on who knows what. Then you want to accuse the Russia
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:2)
You're joking, right? The money W is wasting in Iraq could fund libraries, schools, roads, the ISS, STS, HST and still have plenty left over for a nice party. It is most certainly W's fault that he decided to start an expensive war that was not needed.
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:1)
See - http://www.jwst.nasa.gov/ [nasa.gov]
Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled. (Score:2)
Good thing Hubble's got a lot of spare gyros too.
Oh, wait.
It's a travesty since scientific discoveries are one of the reasons how society advances.
16th year of a 10 year mission (Score:2)
The Hubble Project site says differently [nasa.gov].
Hubble is in the 16th year of a 10 year mission. It replacement, the James Webb Te [nasa.gov]
Funding (Score:2)
I recall they cut it, brought it back, wanted to cut it again...
I don't remember how the story ended.
Either way, the Hubble isn't getting any repair flights in 2006.
Re:Funding (Score:5, Interesting)
Personally, I'd be working more towards launching a replacement for the Hubble. Ground based telescopes have caught up in many ways with adaptive lense technologies, but the hubble works much better in the infrared from what I understand. Design the replacement more towards making up the shortfalls of ground based telescopes.
Given the cost of a dedicated shuttle maintenance mission, it might even be cheaper to just launch new ones, especially if you make a series of them, allowing you to spread R&D costs between multiple sats.
Re:Funding (Score:5, Informative)
No, no, no!
[I'm banging my head on the desk right now, because of you...]
The Hubble Space Telescope, by design is a telescope designed to observe the Universe in ultra-violet (UV) waveband. Its mirror gerates the finest point image at 2800Angstrom, and the image rapidly degrades at a longer wavelength (esp. IR). It's Daniel Goldin and his stupid minions who successfully sold the idea that the HST would be a great IR telescope (to detect planets, which were the hot topic to sell to the congress for funding).
You can do most of IR observations from the ground. Even the imaging quality ain't too bad from the ground, either. The best part of doing IR in space is the gain in sensitivity (the atmosphere isn't exactly dark in IR; also it absorbs some water molecule wavebands). But then, there is Spitzer telescope for IR space astronomy today. You don't need the Hubble to do that.
On the other hand, you can't do UV astronomy from the ground. The air is opaque to UV light.
Re:Funding (Score:2)
(1) I can't spell in a hurry,
(2) Daniel Goldin may not be the first moron to promote the use of the Hubble in IR.
Re:Funding (Score:1, Flamebait)
I can see the War on Air now: "Muslims, Mr. President. Our top scientists have determined that Muslims need air." "There's only one thing to do then ..."
Re:Funding (Score:1)
Re:Funding (Score:2)
Re:Funding (Score:5, Informative)
Officially, Sean O'Keefe (the former NASA admistrator) dropped the last Hubble servicing mission from the Space Shuttle manifest because of the risk involved (Hubble was the only non-ISS mission left, leaving no option to fix the orbiter with the help of ISS assets or possibly "holing up" in the ISS while a rescue mission was processed). I'm really oversimplifying it, but essentially that's the reason.
Of course, I'm fairly certain Sean O'Keefe was the only individual within NASA that thought this was too great of a risk. That includes the astronauts who would actually strap themselves to the orbiter stack. Everyone at NASA loves Hubble. O'Keefe may have been playing politics to get Congress to "order" the mission, thus relieving NASA of the risk decision.
O'Keefe is gone now, however, and the new administrator (Mike Griffin) has been more or less been in favor of servicing Hubble again.
Anyways, while the flight isn't officially on the books it's more or less common knowledge around here there is going to be a servicing mission in 2008 or so. Long lead work is being done on the flight. As long as something drastic doesn't happen to the shuttle program that causes it to shut down, that mission is going to be flown. Hubble is NASA's crown jewel.
Re:Funding (Score:2)
We have three space shuttles, all have flown over 20 missions, and are much over 10 year
Re:Funding (Score:2)
Re:Funding (Score:2)
Maybe you can answer a question of mine then!
How are the engineers able to make further evaluations on the break down or even isolate the problem to a couple failed components?
Personally, I find that part the most fascinating as I generally have to look at a component to know what has failed. Unless of course, I knew that X part was a POS and I shouldn't have used it. (though in the past I have known a component was going to eventually fail due to physical inspection or odd readings, but I was lazy and
Re:Funding (Score:5, Informative)
O'Keefe was NOT a scientist, but a business-track administrator, and as such didn't have an intimate understanding of the import of science as a full-blooded scientist does. In other words, he looked at the Hubble telescope as a business project, not as a scientific instrument. Luckily Griffin is completely opposite, he was a scientist and worked his way from science through science management, so has an understanding of both fields pretty well.
Additionally, Columbia was lost on O'Keefe's watch, so he's overcompensating by being excessively cautious for future flights. Unfortunately to the point of compromising scientific fulfillment.
More links (Score:5, Informative)
Space.com [space.com] article.
And the original statement from Space Telescope Science Institute (this was edited out by the editor...not that I mind being edited, btw):
STScI Anomaly Report [stsci.edu]
Re:More links (Score:3, Interesting)
The 'editors' at slashdot refuse to correct misspellings, typos, and grossly inaccurate statements.
Put in an informative link, though, and they are ALL ABOUT removing that shit.
Re:More links (Score:1)
Some editors do corrections; others don't. I don't see any serious problem with that. This is, after all, slashdot. It ain't NY times.
Budget Cuts (Score:2, Funny)
Hmmmm.. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Hmmmm.. (Score:2)
Of course (Score:5, Funny)
Your computer is currently running in safe mode. Some functions may be unavailable.
Looks like it's time to do a wipe and reinstall the Hubble. It's probably just spyware anyway...
energetic? (Score:2)
Re:energetic? (Score:5, Informative)
Place your bets (Score:5, Insightful)
That's fancy talk for "Placing bets on what's going to break next".
Re:Place your bets (Score:3, Insightful)
Fixed that for you.
In a sense, they are placing bets, but whatever course(s) of action has the highest probability of causing failures... they aren't gonna do it.
After all, the engineers have nothing to lose if they spend a month trouble shooting every possible failure scenario.
Re:Place your bets (Score:1)
Like I said, Placing bets on what's going to break next.
The thing's cool & all, but nothing can last forever, & jerry-rigging it only works for soo long.
The real reason behind it... (Score:1)
Headlines compared: (Score:2, Funny)
Here: "Hubble's Advanced Camera Suspends Operations"
There: "Hubble Blind!"
Now I know why they don't let nerds write ad copy
Re:Headlines compared: (Score:1)
You know why I didn't choose to use the word "blind"?
Because it still has the WFPC2 Camera. It's old and somewhat busted, but it still works. FGS works, too, if the interferometer tickles your fansy. Does NICMOS still work that well, I wonder?
Re:Headlines compared: (Score:1)
Duly noted,
and, while I can resist (but only just) the temptation to ask about having your your fansy tickled by an interferometer , I feel I should console you. I can find no better form of consolation than something that has already appeared in this discussion "Don't worry, we can always fall back on America's lead in grammar and spelling." And ask you to notice that I resisted the temptat
Re:Headlines compared: (Score:2)
Have to go back in space (Score:1)
I checked the labels (Score:1)
Made in China
Two words: SPACE HELMET (Score:2, Funny)
NASA: Is it still within operational limits right now?
Hubble Computer: Yes, and it will stay that way until it fails.
NASA: Would you say we have a reliable 72 hours to failure?
Hubble Computer: Yes, that's a completely reliable figure.
NASA: Well, then I suppose we'll have to bring it in, but first I'd like to go over this with Mission Control. Le
Hubble Origins Probe (Score:4, Interesting)
This failure is one of many that show that America is loosing the capability of space flight and research.
From their website (http://www.pha.jhu.edu/hop/):
The Hubble Origins Probe (HOP) is a proposed 2.4 meter free flying space telescope.The HOP concept is to replicate the design of the Hubble Space Telescope with a much lighter unaberrated mirror and optical telescope assembly, enabling a rapid path to launch, significant cost savings and risk mitigation. HOP will fly the instruments originally planned for the 4th HST servicing mission as well as a new very wide field imager, enhancing the original science mission of Hubble.
Re:Hubble Origins Probe (Score:1)
Moderation +1
100% Witty Sarcasm
Yet another conspiracy theory... (Score:1)
The REAL story: (Score:1, Troll)
So, why is no Hubble a crisis? (Score:1)
Honestly, what's the rush? How did we manage without it?