Hubble Telescope Goes into Safe Mode

cyclone3d said:
Why not send up a crew to replace the broken gyros?
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depreciated the only antique launch vehicle capable of doing it due to safety concerns.

and if they did do a mission to service it there are a few things they need to do to it.
6 gyros
a refuel
solar panel replacement
mirror replacement
camera replacement

or...
launch james webb

what i am curious about is if they could not attempt a restart of all nonfunctioning gyros see if by chance if any come back also i am opposed to turning off one of the 2 currently working as if they turn it off to save life of it for when the other fails what if it doesn't start back up
 
Lunas said:
depreciated the only antique launch vehicle capable of doing it due to safety concerns.

and if they did do a mission to service it there are a few things they need to do to it.
6 gyros
a refuel
solar panel replacement
mirror replacement
camera replacement

or...
launch james webb

what i am curious about is if they could not attempt a restart of all nonfunctioning gyros see if by chance if any come back also i am opposed to turning off one of the 2 currently working as if they turn it off to save life of it for when the other fails what if it doesn't start back up
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Better idea. Do both. That way there is even more capability for the scientists to use!
 
Curious how if 3 gyros are for optimal... I'm guessing to make sure x/y/z is correctly oriented that 1 gyro is doable. I mean are they just going to guess on the other two directions that it's more or less pointed at the right part of the sky?
 
It have been great, i have used Hubble pics a few times as desktop backgrounds.
Looking forward to see what the new telescopes can do.
 
kju1 said:
Better idea. Do both. That way there is even more capability for the scientists to use!
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But like I said they needed the shuttles to do the servicing and those are mothballed at museums now.

So finalizing designs for new launch vehicle capable the sheer amount of cargo to retrofit the instruments refuel it new batteries new panels new gyros cameras and mirrors literally nothing left on it removal or replacement of corrective lenses new computer and backups. Yeah might as well just replace the thing and rely on soft fixes for anything left out of the old girl.
 
Lunas said:
But like I said they needed the shuttles to do the servicing and those are mothballed at museums now.

So finalizing designs for new launch vehicle capable the sheer amount of cargo to retrofit the instruments refuel it new batteries new panels new gyros cameras and mirrors literally nothing left on it removal or replacement of corrective lenses new computer and backups. Yeah might as well just replace the thing and rely on soft fixes for anything left out of the old girl.
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Engineer a new solution. Its worth the money. Better spent on science than on sports...
 
kju1 said:
Engineer a new solution. Its worth the money. Better spent on science than on sports...
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that is just it they did engineer a solution it is called the james webb telescope
 
I wonder why they didn't build it with like 20 gyros so they could keep failing over to a fresh set. The telescope cost $1,500,000,000. What if it cost $1,501,000,000 to have more gyros, would anyone blink an eye?
 
Seventyfive said:
I wonder why they didn't build it with like 20 gyros so they could keep failing over to a fresh set. The telescope cost $1,500,000,000. What if it cost $1,501,000,000 to have more gyros, would anyone blink an eye?
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they built it to last only so long it is now 20 years past that point. They put 6 need only 1 to operate the thing and in the mission they serviced it in 2009 they replaced nearly everything. They used the shuttle 5 times to service it during which the orbit was corrected each time and the last time they worked on it they installed mounts to send a robot up so they could in theory send a robot up to dock with it service it or deorbit it.
 
Seventyfive said:
I wonder why they didn't build it with like 20 gyros so they could keep failing over to a fresh set. The telescope cost $1,500,000,000. What if it cost $1,501,000,000 to have more gyros, would anyone blink an eye?
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weight and size.. the shuttle has a max weight capacity of 26k kg while hubble weighed in at 11.11k kg not to mention the size of the satillite barely fit in the shuttle. but ultimately i'm sure in the late 1980's when the thing was built no one thought that the US would lose human launch capability before hubble reached the end of it's life span. what's even more sad in all of this is that with the technology we have since hubble was built and launched it's taken 28 years for them to even bother building a replacement for hubble. we should of had another one up there years ago.
 
When the figured that squeezing the lubricant into the gyros with oxygen was the cause of corrosion which eventually caused the failure, wonder why they didn't change the process to use something else that wouldn't corrode, argon maybe? And before anyone says "but they just found out" this was know/speculated as early back as 1999.
 
sfsuphysics said:
When the figured that squeezing the lubricant into the gyros with oxygen was the cause of corrosion which eventually caused the failure, wonder why they didn't change the process to use something else that wouldn't corrode, argon maybe? And before anyone says "but they just found out" this was know/speculated as early back as 1999.
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They did replace them with nitrogen gas; at least 4 of the 6 installed in 2009, possibly all 6, but I'm not sure because they had to install a refurb for one of the gyro pairs because the new one didn't fit right, and I don't know if they refurbed it with nitrogen or oxygen. But it's still spinning at 19k RPM for 9 years in space, so there's that.
 
when they built this and put it into orbit the USA had a department named NASA that had shuttles that could go into space. They assumed that we would still have NASA later to keep working on the unit.
 
Exavior said:
when they built this and put it into orbit the USA had a department named NASA that had shuttles that could go into space. They assumed that we would still have NASA later to keep working on the unit.
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even as it is now they are still saying it will continue observations till 2030-2040 realistically all this means for the telescope is it moves slower
 
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cdabc123 said:
How do 4/6 gyros fail? I never thought gyros were the most unreliable parts
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And these aren't even the original set.

There are ongoing efforts into the absurdly high failure rates of such devices in space.
 
DeathFromBelow said:
The public sure does though.

It helps put things in perspective. The Hubble + all the servicing missions and program expenses cost about one years worth of NFL revenue.
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Private sector has nothing to do with NASA and space, if we want more money to spent on space stuff then ask the government to spend less on other projects and funnel it to NASA. Bitching about what the private sector does won't fix anything.
 
It seems like some assume that these gyros are small sensors. My understanding is that these are maneuvering, reaction, gyros. They are big (well, they have a lot of mass), so they can physically twist and rotate the telescope into a different orientation. The last thing you want is to use maneuvering thrusters. Thrusters need fuel...and they create exhaust. Fuel runs out and exhaust contaminates the mirror, etc.

These gyros are about the size of a car tire and are very precise...and their brakes are also very precise. The combination of spinning up and braking creates the movements. Paired gyros cancel each other out as far as reactive torque is concerned.

These are far bigger and more complex than a sensor (like a laser ring gyro).

Just my understanding...
 
serpretetsky said:
Those are all difficult things to design around! But what do they have to do with 0g? :)
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Think about the manufacturing and tolerances when built under one G and then functioning in zero. Zero G is not easy on things built and aligned in one G.
 
Also remember that the Hubble doesn't just point in a direction and snap a picture, like your camera. It points in a direction, fixates on several objects in space, and then holds for an exposure. Since the Hubble is moving, the Ultra Deep Field exposures may take several orbits to complete, meaning it will have to reacquire the objects it aligns to and begin the exposure again. The gyroscopes are needed to keep Hubble perfectly aligned in space, and the gyroscopes don't need to 'stop working' to fail - if they develop a vibration or start oscillating too much they will put a shudder in the imager that will ruin the exposure.
 
BloodyIron said:
The project has already become extremely cost effective, AFAIK it has already massively exceeded its anticipated lifespan. Next ISS trip could potentially include repair of it.

I suspect it would be worth repairing instead of just scrapping. The most expensive part is already done, it's in orbit.
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This. It's not like they haven't repaired it before. They put a new lens in it in 1993 due to the original one being ground incorectly.


Space pron:

800px-Hoffman_and_Musgrave_EVA5.jpg
 
TordanGow said:
This. It's not like they haven't repaired it before. They put a new lens in it in 1993 due to the original one being ground incorectly.


Space pron:

View attachment 111745
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That was when the shuttles were still in service. We don't have a vehicle capable of launching docking and conducting repairs now. The robot would need to be made or the vehicle would need to be modded. They will not fix the Hubble when it has too many negatives this close to the launch of the successor craft.

2021 2.2 more years James Webb will be launched with all around better everything. And they have already stated this just slows the scope down and it will continue for another 30 years even if all of the gyros fail. 30-40 years is when it will deorbit to the point the flywheel can turn it.
 
Trimlock said:
Private sector has nothing to do with NASA and space, if we want more money to spent on space stuff then ask the government to spend less on other projects and funnel it to NASA. Bitching about what the private sector does won't fix anything.
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Trimlock said:
no, but keep bitching about what other people do with their money.

It'll get you places.
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Except its not what other people do with their money when the PUBLIC spends billions in lost tax revenue to build stadiums for private for profit companies.

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/sports-jobs-taxes-are-new-stadiums-worth-the-cost/

Most of this $7 billion will come from public sources. The subsidy starts with the federal government, which allows state and local governments to issue tax-exempt bonds to help finance sports facilities. Tax exemption lowers interest on debt and so reduces the amount that cities and teams must pay for a stadium. Since 1975, the interest rate reduction has varied between 2.4 and 4.5 percentage points. Assuming a differential of 3 percentage points, the discounted present value loss in federal taxes for a $225 million stadium is about $70 million, or more than $2 million a year over a useful life of 30 years. Ten facilities built in the 1970s and 1980s, including the Superdome in New Orleans, the Silverdome in Pontiac, the now-obsolete Kingdome in Seattle, and Giants Stadium in the New Jersey Meadowlands, each cause an annual federal tax loss exceeding $1 million.
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The Yankees built a stadium in 2009 that NY financed with $1.7 billion in tax free bonds. PLUS because those bonds are untaxable the 1%ers that bought them recieved untaxable income from those...I believe it was to the tune of nearly $60 million.

So no this isnt bitching about what a $100 billion dollar industry does with its money, its bitching about the fact that we, the tax payer, are paying for something when we could be paying for science instead.
 
kju1 said:
Except its not what other people do with their money when the PUBLIC spends billions in lost tax revenue to build stadiums for private for profit companies.

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/sports-jobs-taxes-are-new-stadiums-worth-the-cost/



The Yankees built a stadium in 2009 that NY financed with $1.7 billion in tax free bonds. PLUS because those bonds are untaxable the 1%ers that bought them recieved untaxable income from those...I believe it was to the tune of nearly $60 million.

So no this isnt bitching about what a $100 billion dollar industry does with its money, its bitching about the fact that we, the tax payer, are paying for something when we could be paying for science instead.
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Again none of that money would have gone towards NASA, those tax funds eventually go into the local infrastructure. If you want to complain about how we give tax breaks to sports (which also coincidentally builds up infrastructure) then fine, have at it. It still would of never gone into space stuff.

The argument is, our federal government needs to spend less on Y and give it to space stuff. Sports isn't a problem.
 
Trimlock said:
Again none of that money would have gone towards NASA, those tax funds eventually go into the local infrastructure. If you want to complain about how we give tax breaks to sports (which also coincidentally builds up infrastructure) then fine, have at it. It still would of never gone into space stuff.

The argument is, our federal government needs to spend less on Y and give it to space stuff. Sports isn't a problem.
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No thats not true. Those tax funds are not collected they cant be spent elswhere. Do you understand how a tax break works?

Sports are exactly the problem. You probably didnt even read the link did you?

But hey if you want to continue to make the rich richer at the expense of tax revenues...feel free.
 
kju1 said:
No thats not true. Those tax funds are not collected they cant be spent elswhere. Do you understand how a tax break works?

Sports are exactly the problem. You probably didnt even read the link did you?

But hey if you want to continue to make the rich richer at the expense of tax revenues...feel free.
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Sorry not clicking your links.
 
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