NASA Makes Progress In Hubble Gyro Repair Written 23 October 2018
Space News reports that engineers have made progress “correcting a faulty gyro on the Hubble Space Telescope, making NASA optimistic the space telescope can resume normal operations in the near future.” Hubble has been kept in safe mode “since the failure of the third of its six gyroscopes Oct. 5.” During a Monday meeting of NASA’s Astrophysics Advisory Council, “Paul Hertz, director of NASA’s astrophysics division, said engineers had made progress in correcting what are known as ‘high bias rates’ with the faulty gyro, designated gyro 3.” According to Hertz, engineers have been “changing some of the controls on gyro 3 and have succeeded in reducing the anomalous high bias rates to rates which may be in the usable range.” Additional tests will confirm if rates remain in acceptable ranges. If these were to “bear out,” Hertz said, “then we would be able to return Hubble to science mode using all three gyros.” The engineering tests are expected to continue through this week.
More Info (Space News)
More Info (Space News)