Hubble Camera Lost "For Good"

Several readers wrote in to tell us, following up on the recent story of the shutting down of Hubble's main camera, that program engineers are now saying that the camera is probably gone for good. The trouble resulted from a short circuit on Saturday in Hubble's most popular instrument, the Advanced Camera for Surveys. NASA engineers reported Monday that most of the camera's capabilities, including the ability to take the sort of deep cosmic postcards that have inspired the public, had probably been lost. We'll be pining for more of those amazing images until the James Webb launches in 2013.
Update: 01/30 23:28 GMT by KD : Reader Involved astronomer wrote in with an addendum / clarification to this story: "I'm a grant-funded astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute (www.stsci.edu) in Baltimore. I am very concerned that the article conveys the wrong idea about HST. While HST's science capacity is diminished with the loss of ACS, HST lives on and will continue to produce world-class science, even before its servicing mission in Sept. 2008, which will upgrade the instrument suite with the most sophisticated imagers in history." Read on for the rest of his note.

I'd like to point out these facts:

1. A fuse blew on ACS side two electronics — This will LIKELY (we're not 100% sure yet) render the Wide-field channel and the High-resolution channel (e.g. 2/3rds of the camera) inoperable. The solar blind channel will likely be returned to operation.
2. While we have lost (2/3rds) of ACS, NICMOS and WFPC2, two fantastic imagers, are still operational. WFPC2 is responsible for many of the gorgeous images that grace many of your desktop wallpapers.
3. ACS had an expected lifetime of 5 years. It met that lifetime. The loss of ACS, while of course disappointing, is not necessarily a shock.
4. Servicing mission 4 is currently scheduled for Sept. 2008. It will upgrade HST to never-before-seen scientific capability and productivity. The Wide-Field Camera 3, which will be installed then, will essentially be an even more sophisticated successor to ACS.

In short, the reports of Hubble's demise are GREATLY exaggerated. She will continue to produce world-class science and incredible images. While we are disappointed with the (apparent) loss of ACS, HST will live on well into the next decade.

You can view one of our press releases on this here: http://hubblesite.org/acs/.

Could the NSA help?

[yellowbkpk]

What if the NSA pointed one of their old drifting recon birds the wrong way and refocused it a few million light years from here?

I realize the optics aren't set up to do far-field imaging, but maybe it'd be cheaper and quicker than waiting to fix the Hubble?

Re:Conspiracy theory

[Mr. Hankey]

"NASA" doesn't want to end it per se, there are people who work on that project and use the data who would like to see it continue. The issue is whether there are sufficient funds to keep the Hubble telescope going, while taking care of other ongoing missions and work to prepare for the planned future missions. If congress hands NASA a lump of cash and tells them "This is for Hubble", Hubble will be serviced. Until that happens, there's a lot of work to be done before we have our shuttle replacement and a manned base on the moon. My humble opinion, not the opinion of NASA, legalese blah blah blah, but based on observation.

Debris from Chinese tests?

[skintigh2]

I read in an article on yahoo news, which I cannot find right now, that some of hubble's electrical shorts may have been related to debris floating in space. Is the HST in the same orbit as the satellite that China recently blew up?

Re:No time in the upcoming servicing mission

[Nyeerrmm]

They're less likely to send a second mission to Hubble because of safety. From whats publicly available, it was hard to convince the safety guys to agree to one mission without the possibility of the ISS as a lifeboat. Also I think all planned launches except the Hubble repair are ISS construction launches.

I do wonder about that Hubble repair launch. Their not big on changing mission profiles significantly, and I'm certainly no expert on what they're doing to it, but it seems that some of the repairs may not be worthwhile if that camera is down, or if they might decided that not doing as much (i.e. letting it die sooner) but replacing the camera might be worth it. But like I said, I don't know much about how the Hubble works and what the current repair plans are.

Hubble pictures are nice 'n' all...

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

...but the excitement of seeing some of those pictures can't compare with what I felt when I first saw this pair of galaxies [nasa.gov] and the Orion Nebula [nasa.gov] with my own eyes in my shiny new low cost ($300) 8" reflector (even if they didn't look as spectacular as in those pictures I linked to).

Re:No time in the upcoming servicing mission

[Anonymous McCartneyf]

The rest of the Hubble Telescope is still working. We want the parts that are still working to be maintained: they served us well for twenty years, so we might as well squeeze a little more out of them.
Better just the ACS than the whole telescope.
And hey, if we're fortunate, they might put in another nice camera in 2008 to hold everyone over until that infrared one gets launched. They can make time for it--this was clearly a well-loved camera, and the people and science boards have some voice.
I really think that the safety concerns for space shuttle trips are pushed too hard. We know space is dangerous, we know we're still exploring, so why can't we just accept the risks?

Anyone notice China's cloud of junk?

[heroine]

The news conspicuously avoided any mention of China and the cloud of junk China sent shooting through space right before all these satellites failed.

MSNBC said the ACS was the primary producer of data since 2002 and it could not be replaced in a single repair mission. MSNBC also said it failed 2 months short of its 5 year mission. People like MSNBC. They like Keith Olbermann. They trust Keith Olbermann more than their own eyes. MSNBC gave quite a bleaker picture than the funded astronomer.

The real fear is they'll cancel the next repair mission because it's a lost cause. Not good if you're living on Hubble grants.

Re:think i can wait...

[StikyPad]

ground-based adaptive optics imaging are hoped to be able to provide image quality as good as Hubble by the time it is ready to be retired sometime in the next decade.

I thought the Large Binocular Telescope [arizona.edu] was already doing that, producing images 10 times sharper [wikipedia.org] than Hubble.