This Giant Space Telescope Has A Mystery Computer Problem Here S How Nasa Engineers Are Trying To Fix It
A couple of weeks ago, NASA’s beloved Hubble Space Telescope, which over the course of its 31-year career has provided us with many enchanting pictures of distant stars and galaxies, started showing some worrying symptoms. The telescope’s payload computer, one of the central systems that controls and coordinates the science instruments onboard the spacecraft, and transmits science and engineering data to the ground, unexpectedly came to a halt. SEE: Building the bionic brain (free PDF) (TechRepublic) This was immediately picked up by NASA’s team because the payload computer and the main computer on the telescope are normally constantly sending each other a “keep-alive” signal – known by NASA engineers as a “handshake” – to indicate that all is well....