The Hubble Space Telescope launched in 1990, and like so many NASA missions, it has continued to work far longer than anyone ever imagined. Originally launched on a fifteen-year mission, we almost lost Hubble in 2009 at age 19 after parts of its pointing system failed. The general outcry of both the science community and the general public convinced NASA and Congress to allow a final shuttle mission to an altitude that the Shuttle really wasn’t supposed to fly to after the Columbia disaster in 2003. That final servicing mission installed new batteries, new gyroscopes, new computers and guidance systems, and installed two new instruments in the place of two instruments that had reached the end of their life. 

At the time, I remember hearing budget wonks declaring sternly that we could only have Hubble until JWST was launched because the budget needed to administer JWST in orbit was the same budget used to administer Hubble, and we couldn’t have both at once; there just wasn’t the budget.

Here we are, twelve years later, and Hubble is still orbiting, and JWST, which was already overdue to launch in 2009, is still on the ground. Spitzer, the great infrared observatory that was due to be shut down around 2010, kept going until 2020 to keep getting us infrared images while we waited for JWST. Put another way, JWST’s delays meant some pretty special telescopes got a longer lease on life.

As anyone with a beloved old piece of tech knows, every piece of electronics has a day when it just stops working. My Wii now sits on a shelf making me sad in its refusal to function. Spitzer’s batteries would no longer charge sufficiently, and it had to be turned off. Hubble gave us a good scare but is working again.

On June 13, one of Hubble’s computers crashed, and it put itself into safe mode. To be frank, at age 31 I, too, started to periodically crash. While the spacecraft wasn’t able to perform most of its functions, it was still in contact with its operators and capable of receiving commands and updates. After what felt like an archeological search through 1980s-era documentation, and with the help of software and computer engineers who returned from retirement, they were able to systematically figure out what needed to be turned off and on and what software needed to be reinstalled with updates. On Saturday, July 17, after what I feel comfortable saying was one of the most masterful and careful computer rescues, Hubble was able to return to service.

Among the first images taken were these unusual galaxies being studied by Julianne Dalcanton and her research team. On the left is a pair of merging galaxies, and on the right is an unusual three-armed galaxy that is likely the result of a damaging interaction between galaxies. A lot more data and a lot more time are needed before we can see these systems in their full glory and understand them with new levels of detail, but it is still exciting to see them in these crisp images.

More Information

NASA Returns Hubble Space Telescope to Science Operations (NASA)

Hubble Returns to Full Science Observations and Releases New Images (NASA)

Hubble press release