Skip to main content

Hubble will switch to a new mode to preserve its troublesome gyros

An STS-125 crew member aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis captured this image of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope on May 19, 2009.
An STS-125 crew member aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis captured this image of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope on May 19, 2009. NASA

The beloved Hubble Space Telescope will soon be changing the way it operates by limiting the speed at which it can target new objects in order to preserve its lifespan for as long as possible.

Hubble has been having problems with its gyros over the last year, causing the spacecraft to go into safe mode several times while teams on the ground worked to address the issue. The gyros, or gyroscopes, of which Hubble originally had six, are used to help the telescope turn and lock on to the target of study such as a star or galaxy. They work using an extremely fast-spinning wheel that is sealed inside a cylinder that floats in a thick, viscous fluid. This allows them to measure the speed at which Hubble is moving, so that it can accurately lock onto new targets.

Recommended Videos

Hubble originally used three gyros at a time, with the other three installed as backups. Over the years, various gyros have worn out and been replaced, leaving only three operational. Now, as one of the remaining gyros has been experiencing continuing issues, the Hubble team has decided to switch to using just one gyro at a time in order to preserve them for as long as possible.

The “one-gyro mode” will still allow Hubble to make science observations and to continue to take beautiful pictures of space. The downside of the mode is that it will take longer for the telescope to move from one target to the next, so there will be a decrease in the amount of observations it can make. It will also mean that Hubble can’t observe targets closer than Mars, such as the moon or Venus, although Hubble has rarely observed these targets in the past anyway.

“There are some limitations, but they’re not what I would call serious impediments to continuing science operations,” said Mark Clampin, director of NASA’s Astrophysics Division, in a briefing.

Clampin also emphasized that the agency expects Hubble to continue operating through the 2020s and into the 2030s. There have been previous studies of whether commercial technology like SpaceX’s Polaris could be used to boost Hubble, raising its orbit in order to extend its lifespan. Clampin said they were not planning to pursue those plans right now, but they may do so in the future.

NASA representatives also made it clear that they want to continue operating Hubble and making use of its incredible capabilities: “We do not see Hubble as being on its last legs, and we do see it as a very capable observatory capable of doing exciting science,” said Patrick Crouse, project manager for the Hubble Space Telescope.

The plan is to transition into one-gyro mode by reconfiguring both the spacecraft and some ground systems, with the aim to restart science operations in mid-June.

Georgina Torbet
Georgina has been the space writer at Digital Trends space writer for six years, covering human space exploration, planetary…
NASA needs a new approach for its challenging Mars Sample Return mission
An illustration of NASA's Sample Return Lander shows it tossing a rocket in the air like a toy from the surface of Mars.

NASA has shared an update on its beleaguered Mars Sample Return mission, admitting that its previous plan was too ambitious and announcing that it will now be looking for new ideas to make the mission happen. The idea is to send a mission to collect samples from the surface of Mars and return them to Earth for study. It's been a long-term goal of planetary science researchers, but one that is proving costly and difficult to put into practice.

The Perseverance rover has already collected and sealed a number of samples of Mars rock as it journeys around the Jezero Crater, and has left these samples in a sample cache ready to be collected.  However, getting them back to Earth in the previous plan required sending a vehicle to Mars, getting it to land on the surface, sending out another rover to collect the samples and bring them back, launching a rocket from the planet's surface (something which has never been done before), and then having this rocket rendezvous with another spacecraft to carry them back to Earth. That level of complexity was just too much to be feasible within a reasonable budget, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson announced this week.

Read more
Hubble spots a bright galaxy peering out from behind a dark nebula
The subject of this image taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope is the spiral galaxy IC 4633, located 100 million light-years away from us in the constellation Apus. IC 4633 is a galaxy rich in star-forming activity and also hosts an active galactic nucleus at its core. From our point of view, the galaxy is tilted mostly towards us, giving astronomers a fairly good view of its billions of stars.

A new image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows a galaxy partly hidden by a huge cloud of dust known as a dark nebula. The galaxy IC 4633 still shines brightly and beautifully in the main part of the image, but to the bottom right, you can see dark smudges of dust that are blocking the light from this part of the galaxy.

Taken using Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) instrument, the image also incorporates data from the DECam instrument on the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope, which is located in Chile. By bringing together data from the space-based Hubble and the ground-based DECam, astronomers can get a better look at this galaxy, located 100 million light-years away, and the dark dust partially obscuring it.

Read more
Hubble captures the dramatic jets of a baby star
FS Tau is a multi-star system made up of FS Tau A, the bright star-like object near the middle of the image, and FS Tau B (Haro 6-5B), the bright object to the far right that is partially obscured by a dark, vertical lane of dust. The young objects are surrounded by softly illuminated gas and dust of this stellar nursery. The system is only about 2.8 million years old, very young for a star system. Our Sun, by contrast, is about 4.6 billion years old.

A new image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows the drama that unfolds as a new star is born. Within a swirling cloud of dust and gas, a newly formed star is giving off powerful jets that blast away material and cut through the nearby dust of the surrounding nebula to create this stunning vista.

The image shows a system called FS Tau, located 450 light-years away in a region called Taurus-Auriga. Within this region are many stellar nurseries with new stars forming, making it a favorite target for astronomers studying star formation. But this particular system stands out for the dramatic nature of its newborn star, which has formed an epic structure called a Herbig-Haro object.

Read more