Two thirds of the observation ability on the popular Hubble Space Telescope's main camera have been permanently lost following power supply problems, NASA announced Monday.
The Advanced Camera for Surveys shut down again over the weekend, the third outage in less than a year for the instrument. The orbiting observatory entered a protective "safe mode" Saturday morning and an initial investigation has determined that its backup power supply failed, the space agency said.
Observations are expected to resume this week using the Hubble's other instruments. One of the three cameras on the ACS, the solar blind channel, is expected to be returned to operation, possibly by the middle of February.
The outlook is not good for the other two, said Dave Leckrone, a senior scientist on the Hubble Space Telescope project at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt.
"We're not optimistic at all that those will be restored," Leckrone said.
The ACS, installed during a March 2002, servicing mission, increased Hubble's vision greatly and has provided the clearest pictures yet of galaxy formation in the very early universe. The instrument consists of three electronic cameras, filters and dispersers that detect light from the ultraviolet to the near infrared.
The ACS was the most heavily in demand from the astronomical community and accounted for two-thirds of the latest proposals for observing time on the Hubble, said Preston Burch, associate director and program manager for the Hubble Space Telescope at Goddard.
Astronomer Mario Livio at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which coordinates use of the Hubble by the scientific community, said the ACS was a "serious workhorse" but astronomers can fall back on Hubble's other instruments.
"So, clearly the observations will continue, science will continue, but it's a great loss, no doubt. It's a great loss because this was a fantastic camera that just produced incredible science," Livio said.
In October, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin announced the scheduling of a 2008 space shuttle mission to repair and upgrade the 16-year-old telescope. The decision was a reversal of one made by the previous NASA chief, who decided against a mission because of astronaut safety concerns.
Without the servicing mission, batteries and stabilizing gyroscopes would run out of power near the end of the decade, bringing to an end the life of the popular space telescope.
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