Hubble Telescope's Main Camera Shuts Down

anthemaniac writes "Space.com is reporting that the aging observatory's primary camera, the ACS, has been in safe mode since the weekend. From the article: 'An initial investigation indicates the camera has stopped functioning, and the input power feed to its Side B electronics package has failed.' The camera has shut down before and been revived."

of course not

[User 956]

Space.com is reporting that the aging observatory's primary camera, the ACS, has been in safe mode since the weekend.

No wonder they can't contact it. Safe Mode doesn't support networking by default.

Can we trust NASA?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's awfully convenient how the Hubble telescope's camera periodically "shuts down" like this. Could it be the Hubble saw something the government doesn't want us to see?

We need data feeds from taxpayer-funded equipment like the Hubble to be made freely available so that the public can make their own decisions about the information being gathered.

I'm inclined to trust NASA for the most part, but in this day and age, what with Habeas Corpus being eroded away, you can't be too careful.

They should just hit F8 on startup

[Anonymous Coward]

and choose "Last known good configuration."

Re:"Aging"

[Anonymous Coward]

Well ya, it's aging. So is everything else in the universe, at the rate of one second per second. Geez I hate it when reporters use that word to make something sound old.

Well, they could call it "Saging," but it would make it sound disgusting or offtopic to 4-channers.

Just outsource to China

[EmbeddedJanitor]

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/space/01/18/china.mis sile/index.html [cnn.com]

Oblig.

[Anonymous Coward]

In Soviet Russia... they don't have cameras.

dear advanced computer user.

[Anonymous Coward]

by "public data" he means 8mb JPGs with color and false color correction emailed to him at [e-mail]

Picture quality

[Skadet]

As long as the photos don't come back at 640x480 in 8-bit color with a "safe mode" watermark in each corner...

What does that remind me of?

[dgr73]

Safe mode. Stopped functioning. Needs to be rebooted to make it work. Anyone for a game of word association?

Hubble tribute song

[Bifurcati]

Seems like an appropriate time to post a parody I wrote recently. It's not really up to scratch, but you never know when you might need to sing a Hubble tribute! You can also find other physics songs and humour [uq.edu.au] on my home page :)

Only Me (A Hubble Tribute)
To the tune of "Only you"
By Joel Gilmore, 2007

Looking at the sky up above
Taking photos with love,
Can you fix me?
Found out only yesterday,
my orbit's soon to decay
Can't you boost me?

Chorus:

All I needed was a manned space flight
All I needed for another night
Since 1993 -
only me.

If I lose one more gyroscope
I don't know if I'll cope,
Send Discovery!
Install Wide Field Camera 3,
Spectrograph, batteries,
My camera's dying!

Chorus:

All I needed was a manned space flight
All I needed for another night
Until James Webb, there'll be -
only ME!