NASA tries again to fire up ailing Hubble telescope

23.10.2008
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope may be down but it's not out.

Scientists announced Thursday afternoon that the 18-year-old orbiting observatory's long sleeping backup computer system is up-and-running and has started to bring the telescope back to life. The announcement comes a week after two glitches had foiled to switch to the backup system.

Art Whipple, chief of NASA's Hubble systems management office at the , said in a press teleconference that while the observatory's main systems were powered up Thursday and are running smoothly, all of the science instruments will remain in safe mode while NASA engineers gauge how the system holds up.

Whipple said the agency hoped to take the first instrument, a camera, out of safe mode on Saturday. A major scientific instrument, the Advanced Camera for Surveys, should be taken out of safe mode next week, he added.

Scientists were stymied last week when the two glitches blocked their attempts to get the back in working order after a computer responsible for sending data back to Earth . On Oct. 15, a to complete a remote switchover from the failed system to an on-board redundant system.

Initial tests a day later showed that the backup system was working well, but the observatory's activation was suspended after they ran into two "anomalies," as described by Whipple in a previous press conference.