Hubble Telescope Facing Technical Difficulties; Observations on Hold

November 30th, 3:30 PM EST

By Paula Wethington

Hubble Space Telescope, file photo

MGN via NASA

(NEWSnet) – NASA has temporarily halted science operations of the Hubble Space Telescope because of a problem with a gyroscope.

In its announcement posted Wednesday, NASA reported that while the telescope instruments are stable, one of its three remaining gyroscopes has been giving faulty readings. The gyros help determine which direction the spacecraft and its telescopes are facing.

The Hubble first went into “safe mode” to wait for directions on Nov. 19. Although operations recovered at first, it’s been an off-and-on situation in the past few days.

“If necessary, the spacecraft can be re-configured to operate with only one gyro,” NASA said.

The Hubble was launched in 1990; and had its fifth and final space shuttle serving mission in 2009. At the time, there were six new gyros installed. Three of those pieces remained working until recently when the one failed.