NASA Plans Urgent Repair for Hubble

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. — NASA announced Wednesday that it will launch an emergency repair mission this fall to the Hubble Space Telescope, which is in danger of shutting down.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration decided Wednesday to move up the next regularly scheduled Hubble visit to October so spacewalking astronauts can fix the telescope’s deteriorating pointing system. The mission had been set for June 2000.

Two of Hubble’s six gyroscopes, needed for pointing and stability, have failed since astronauts’ last service call in 1997. And a third gyroscope is partly broken and considered unreliable.

Astronomers need at least three perfect gyroscopes to conduct observations. The $2-billion telescope would be safe in orbit without any working gyroscopes but would not be usable.

Besides replacing all six gyroscopes in October, spacewalking astronauts will install a new computer, radio transmitter, guidance sensor and data recorder, and fix peeling insulation.