* Astronomy

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RE: Hubble Space Telescope

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NASA restarts Hubble telescope
U.S. space officials reactivated the Hubble space telescope's instrument panel Thursday in an effort to get the telescope transmitting again.

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NASA's efforts to get the ailing Hubble Space Telescope working again have hit a snag, and engineers are trying to figure out their next step.
Officials had hoped to have the 18-year-old observatory back in business Friday, after it stopped sending pictures three weeks ago. But a pair of problems cropped up Thursday, and now recovery operations are on hold.

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NASA is cautiously optimistic that Hubble will soon be back in action following a boot-up of the space telescope's venerable 486 back-up system.
Hubble was last month blinded by the failure of the Control Unit/Science Data Formatter (CU/SDF) in its operational Side A Science Instrument Command and Data Handling unit (SIC&DH), which packets data from the 'scope's five main instruments for transmission back to Earth. NASA decided to switch operations to the redundant Side B of the SIC&DH, which hadn't been fired up since an upgrade to the main computer back in 1999 empowered Hubble with a mighty Intel 80486 microchip.*

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US space agency (Nasa) officials say the orbiting Hubble telescope should come back online for full science operations on Friday.
The telescope suffered a glitch two weeks ago in a key electronics box that prevented it from routing data from its instruments to the ground.
Engineers will begin the process of switching Hubble over to a back-up system on Wednesday.

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At approximately 02:00 CEST on Sunday, 28 September, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope automatically entered safe mode when errors were detected in the Control Unit/Science Data Formatter-Side A.
This component is essential for the storage and transmission of data from the telescope's science instruments back to Earth. Ground control attempts to reset the device and obtain a download of the payload computer's memory were unsuccessful.

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NASA to Discuss Hubble Anomaly and Servicing Mission Launch Delay
NASA will host a media teleconference at 6 p.m. EDT today to discuss a significant Hubble Space Telescope anomaly that occurred this weekend affecting the storage and transmittal of science data to Earth. Fixing the problem will delay next month's space shuttle Atlantis' Hubble servicing mission.

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The Hubble Space telescope lost the use of its primary "phone home" device this weekend, a problem that could delay the already-postponed launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis and its seven-member crew. Kennedy Space Centre Director Bill Parsons acknowledged the problem during a space industry forum this morning in Cocoa, FL.
NASA managers are meeting now to discuss options to deal with the crisis. For 18 years, the unit has reliably processed science data, compiled it into a usable format for scientists back on Earth, and shipped it home.

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A new $70 million device designed by the University of Colorado will soon let the Hubble Space Telescope see how galaxies were made.
The instrument, known as the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph or COS, will perform what CU scientist Michael Shull described as a CAT scan of the universe.
Taking readings from hundreds of different points, the COS will track light as it passes through the cosmic web, the strands of material between galaxies.

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Hubble Trouble: Camera's Cooling System Shuts Down One Instrument's Operations
NASA Hubble managers are reporting that a cooling system for Hubble's Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) balked during restart after new software updates were uploaded last week

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