Hubble Repair Mission on Hold (broadcast Friday, October 3rd, 2008)

The Science Instrument Control and Data Handling Unit, the portion of the Hubble having problems, is the set of six black boxes on the left side of the image.. NASA

NASA has postponed a planned repair mission to the Hubble Space Telescope after a new problem developed with the orbiting observatory. Last Saturday, the telescope stopped sending science data. While a repair mission had originally been slated for launch on October 14, the space agency is now planning to put off the repair mission until February of next year at the earliest. In the meantime, Hubble operators will attempt to transfer the data-sending operations to a backup system. In this segment, we'll talk with Ed Weiler, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters about the servicing mission and plans for Hubble operations.