Hubble's Advanced Camera Suspends Operations

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."

Budget Cuts

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe cutting costs by using a disposeable camera wasn't such a good ideas, huh?

Hmmmm..

[electronmaster]

Shoulda bought the warranty. I'm a camera salesman, I know.

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[amabbi]

Gee, too bad the Bush administration cancelled all maintenance on the Hubble Space Telescope, dooming it to a slow death.

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.

Of course

[Itninja]

"At this point, the ACS is in a safe configuration, and further analysis is ongoing,"

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...

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[McBainLives]

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...

Headlines compared:

[Tablizer]

Another website, USA-Today I think, had a headline that somehow stood out much much quicker. Compare:

Here: "Hubble's Advanced Camera Suspends Operations"

There: "Hubble Blind!"

Now I know why they don't let nerds write ad copy :-)
     

Two words: SPACE HELMET

[bullshit detector]

Hubble Computer: Just a moment...just a moment...I've just picked up a fault in the ACS camera unit. It's going to go a hundred percent failure within 72 hours.
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. Let me have the hard copy on it, please.