Hubble's main camera is broken

NASA's Space Aeronautics Agency has said the Hubble Space Telescope's main camera may have lost two-thirds of its ability to observe after electrical incidents.

The ACS camera was broken over the weekend, this is the third failure within a Hubble telescope's year. The telescope has set itself to ' safety mode ' on the morning of January 27 and the preliminary investigation has identified a failing power supply system.

The Hubble telescope will perform observations this week with other instruments. One of the three cameras installed in the ACS will operate again in mid-February 2007. But Dave Leckrone, in charge of the Hubble project at Goddard Space Center, was not optimistic about the other two cameras.

The ACS camera was installed in March 2002 in a maintenance mission, thereby increasing the Hubble telescope's visibility and providing the most pronounced images of the galaxy.

WITH