Although space (mainly Earth’s orbit) is more than populated with artifacts, None of them achieved the popularity and affection of Hubble. This is the most understandable thing in the world, because for decades, and without leaving the Earth’s orbit, it has not only been an extremely useful tool for scientific research, but also provided us with thousands and thousands of images with which, even in their infinite complexity, ordinary mortals can try to understand the universe a little better.

It was not and is not the only space telescope and Lately, the brand new James Webb has been stealing some of the limelight in the face of public opinion, but we must not forget that the veteran Hubble has been flying over our heads since April 1990, more than 33 and a half years of service, much longer than originally planned, and since 2009 there are no more service operations, no maintenance- repairs, nor equip them with new parts, devices and functions. Without a doubt, we are talking about a milestone in the history of engineering.

The passage of time and the mark it leaves behind are inevitable, and in Hubble’s case The “ailments” of age have been apparent for some time. So if we look at the recent news in relation to the telescope, we can see that much of it has to do with malfunctions that have forced at various times to activate its safe mode, in which a large part of the functions are suspended, its functions (including all scientific) and the activity focuses on trying to correct the problem that caused this situation.

Well, we find ourselves in these conditions again. As published by the space agency itself, the The Hubble telescope is in emergency mode due to a failure of the gyroscope unit, a determining device when determining the orientation of a telescope. Fortunately, this is not an insurmountable problem, since the observer has three gyroscopes, since he could normally function with only one of them, but we must remember that at the time he had six of them and therefore “lost” them before. ” three more, so protecting those that are still functional can play a key role in further extending their life cycle.

In recent weeks, the Hubble has entered and exited safe mode several times due to malfunctions in said gyro unit, which appeared to have been resolved at the end of last month, but now the problem appears to have escalated. Nevertheless, as we can read in the NASA publication, The US space agency is optimistic about this about the near future of the telescope, even going so far as to state “Hubble will continue to make breakthrough discoveries in collaboration with other observatories, such as the agency’s James Webb Space Telescope, throughout this decade and possibly beyond.«. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that it happens.

Images: NASA