Hubble’s Hardware Woes and the Painful Era of Aging Spacecraft
Four of NASA’s most recognizable missions are in “safe mode” or unable to communicate with Earth.
Perhaps no space mission has revealed as many wonders of the universe as the Hubble Space Telescope has. From its perch about 350 miles above Earth, the space observatory has produced sharp, mesmerizing views of planets, stars, and galaxies. The Hubble Deep Field, one of the most iconic images in astronomy, captured thousands of glittering galaxies in a tiny piece of the sky. Beyond the pretty pictures, the telescope has provided scientists with an immense amount of information about the history of the cosmos.
But Hubble isn’t a spring chicken anymore. The telescope was originally supposed to retire after 15 years in space. It this year, and the signs of aging
