Balta1701 Posted October 31, 2006 Share Posted October 31, 2006 So, for the past 5 years or so, it's been official NASA policy that Hubble was at Death's door. The Telescope uses a system of Gyroscopes in order to actually know where it is and be able to orient itself. The whole telescope can contain 6 of them, but it only needs 3 to function. Problem is, those gyroscopes have a habit of failing, so every few years they need to be swapped out. After Columbia, it was judged that another Hubble repair mission might be too risky, because sending a shuttle to Hubble would leave the shuttle on a path that would be unable to rendezvous with the ISS in the event of another shuttle emergency, so Hubble was placed on a death watch. Not sure exactly what it was that changed the minds of the folks running NASA, but the ol' workhorse observatory will live on. NASA is scheduling one final Hubble Servicing mission in 2008, which will hopefully let the great telescope hold out until a replacement is built and launched some time about a decade from now. Save The Hubble.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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