The Hubble Space Telescopes Main Camera is Down

[Mitchz95]

19 hours ago, DerekL1963 said:

It's not sufficient just to do EVAs.  You also have to grapple and hold Hubble adjacent to the spacecraft.  You also have to be able to transfer and store tools and parts, etc...  It's a not trivial thing.

Older design, yes, but I thought the current version would also have a cargo variant with this capability. Hubble is 4.2m wide, so it should fit inside for repairs or recovery, right?

[sevenperforce]

Dragon 2 has no EVA capability whatsoever. 

If NASA wanted to repair Hubble, they could push money to SpaceX to accelerate Dragon 2, launch an unmanned Orion to a Hubble-aligned orbit on Delta IV Heavy, and send a crewed Dragon 2 up to the same orbit on Falcon 9 B5 before the first SpaceX ISS mission. Orion and Dragon would mate and move into a Hubble intercept. Previously-trained astronauts would use tethered EVA from Orion to repair Hubble, using both Orion and Dragon 2's thrusters for stationkeeping, and then return.

The sheer complexity would make the Soyuz-Apollo joint mission look like a cakewalk held at a park during a picnic.

[wumpus]

Hubble is equipped with the means of attaching a "tugboat" to deorbit the thing.  One option would be to make a sufficiently strong "tugboat" to move the thing the required 3km/s to ISS's orbit.  The resultant "tugboat" would be roughly 10 times the power (or at least energy) of Dawn (Dawn was 1 ton with 4km/s delta-v, Hubble is 10 tons and needs 3km/s).  On the other hand: if you have a "tug" attached, I'd expect it to be able to include a suite of gyros and adjust the position of Hubble (in at least 2 dimensions).

[James Kerman]

NASA has posted an update:
 

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Oct. 13, 2018

Update on the Hubble Space Telescope Safe Mode

NASA continues to work toward resuming science operations of the Hubble Space Telescope after the spacecraft entered safe mode due to a failed gyroscope (gyro) on Friday, Oct. 5. 

Following the gyro failure, the Hubble operations team turned on a backup gyro on the spacecraft. However, that gyro did not perform as expected, reporting rotation rates that are orders of magnitude higher than they actually are. This past week, tests were conducted to assess the condition of that backup gyro. The tests showed that the gyro is properly tracking Hubble’s movement, but the rates reported are consistently higher than the true rates. This is similar to a speedometer on your car continuously showing that your speed is 100 miles per hour faster than it actually is; it properly shows when your car speeds up or slows down, and by how much, but the actual speed is inaccurate. 

When the spacecraft turns across the sky from one target to the next, the gyro is put into a coarser (high) mode. In this high mode it may be possible to subtract out a consistent large offset to get an accurate reading. However, after the large turns are over, the spacecraft attempts to lock onto a target and stay very still. For this activity, the gyro goes into a precision (low) mode to measure very small movements. The extremely high rates currently being reported exceed the upper limit of the gyro in this low mode, preventing the gyro from reporting the spacecraft’s small movements.

An anomaly review board that consists of professionals experienced in the manufacturing of such gyros, Hubble operations personnel, flight software engineers and other experts was formed earlier this week to identify the cause of this behavior and determine what solutions can be implemented from the ground to correct or compensate for it.

If the team is successful in solving the problem, Hubble will return to normal, three-gyro operations. If it is not, the spacecraft will be configured for one-gyro operations, which will still provide excellent science well into the 2020s, enabling it to work alongside the James Webb Space Telescope and continue groundbreaking science.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2018/update-on-the-hubble-space-telescope-safe-mode

 

[ProtoJeb21]

21 hours ago, James Kerman said:

NASA has posted an update:
 

 

At least we’ll still be able to have good Hubble science until the JWST launches...if it ever does. I hope the one-gyro operations won’t be detrimental to any exoplanet studies scientists want to use Hubble for. 

[MaverickSawyer]

Looks like the attempt to revive a "balky" gyro (their wording, not mine) has been successful. A few more tests still need to be run, but Hubble should be back in action within a few weeks, tops.

[wumpus]

In other news, Chandra is also back up and running after a scare into safemode (yes, a balky gyro) last week.

[ZooNamedGames]

On 10/10/2018 at 6:18 PM, DerekL1963 said:

It's not sufficient just to do EVAs.  You also have to grapple and hold Hubble adjacent to the spacecraft.  You also have to be able to transfer and store tools and parts, etc...  It's a not trivial thing.

Astronauts would need a miniaturized means of navigation in space... perhaps one they could wear on their backs!

Seriously though. Hubble (last I heard) had grapple points for both astronauts and even had points installed for robotic spacecraft in the 2009 servicing mission. So crews may not even be needed and a new robonaut could do the tasks entirely on it's own without needing to EVA. Teleprescience would work out well here.

[DerekL1963]

3 hours ago, ZooNamedGames said:

Seriously though. Hubble (last I heard) had grapple points for both astronauts and even had points installed for robotic spacecraft in the 2009 servicing mission.

The grapple points were installed for two reasons:  a) as a hedge against robotic repair capability becoming available, and b) so that a de-orbit module could berth itself.
 

3 hours ago, ZooNamedGames said:

So crews may not even be needed and a new robonaut could do the tasks entirely on it's own without needing to EVA. Teleprescience would work out well here.

If we had a robonaut with sufficient dexterity and capability...  But we don't. (Let alone one that qualified for space and sufficiently mature to trust with a multi billion dollar national asset.)  We're not even close.

As far as EVA goes...  Any kind of astronaut maneuvering unit is Right Out. (Not that we have one ready to go, SAFER is only qualified for one time emergency use.)  Great precautions were taken during the Shuttle mission to avoid contaminating the mirrors with gases or residues from the RCS system.  There's also the question of the spacecraft...  Without an airlock, you need to depressurize the entire vehicle.  No proposed vehicle is certified for operations with the crew cabin at vacuum.  (Nor are there any plans to  do.)

[ZooNamedGames]

23 minutes ago, DerekL1963 said:

The grapple points were installed for two reasons:  a) as a hedge against robotic repair capability becoming available, and b) so that a de-orbit module could berth itself.
 

If we had a robonaut with sufficient dexterity and capability...  But we don't. (Let alone one that qualified for space and sufficiently mature to trust with a multi billion dollar national asset.)  We're not even close.

As far as EVA goes...  Any kind of astronaut maneuvering unit is Right Out. (Not that we have one ready to go, SAFER is only qualified for one time emergency use.)  Great precautions were taken during the Shuttle mission to avoid contaminating the mirrors with gases or residues from the RCS system.  There's also the question of the spacecraft...  Without an airlock, you need to depressurize the entire vehicle.  No proposed vehicle is certified for operations with the crew cabin at vacuum.  (Nor are there any plans to  do.)

Well seeing as 5 servicing missions went well, there’s room that another could work. Course the mission isn’t being launched tomorrow, so robonaut, or V3 by that point, could be engineered to be capable. 

[James Kerman]

The Hubble Space Telescope has resumed normal operations late Friday, Oct. 26, and completed its first science observations on Saturday, Oct. 27 at 2:10 AM EDT:

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Last week the operations team commanded Hubble to perform numerous maneuvers, or turns, and switched the gyro between different operational modes, which successfully cleared what was believed to be blockage between components inside the gyro that produced the excessively high rate values. Next, the team monitored and tested the gyro with additional maneuvers to make sure that the gyro was stable. The team then installed additional safeguards on the spacecraft in case the excessive rate values return, although this is not anticipated.

 

On Thursday, the operations team conducted further maneuvers to collect gyro calibration data. On Friday, Hubble performed activities similar to science observations, including rotating to point at different sky locations, and locking on to test targets. The team completed all of these activities without issue.

 

Late Friday, the team began the process to restore the scientific instruments to standard operating status. Hubble successfully completed maneuvers to get on target for the first science observations, and the telescope collected its first science data since Oct. 5. 

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2018/update-on-the-hubble-space-telescope-safe-mode

 

[James Kerman]

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March 2, 2019

 

Advanced Camera for Surveys Anomaly on Hubble Space Telescope

At 8:31 p.m. EST on Feb. 28, the Advanced Camera for Surveys aboard NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope suspended operations after an error was detected as the instrument was performing a routine boot procedure. The error indicated that software inside the camera had not loaded correctly. A team of instrument system engineers, flight software experts and flight operations personnel quickly organized to download and analyze instrument diagnostic information. This team is currently working to identify the root cause and then to construct a recovery plan.

The telescope continues to operate normally, executing observations with the other three science instruments — the Wide Field Camera 3, the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph and the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph — that are all performing nominally. There are no critical observations using the Advanced Camera for Surveys scheduled for the remainder of this week or next week, and the observations that were planned over the next two weeks can be easily rescheduled.

Originally required to last 15 years, Hubble has now been operating for more than 28 years. The final servicing mission in 2009, expected to extend Hubble’s lifetime an additional five years, has now produced more than nine years of science observations. During that servicing mission, astronauts repaired the Advanced Camera for Surveys, installed in 2002, after its power supply failed in 2007.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2019/advanced-camera-for-surveys-anomaly-on-hubble-space-telescope