The Hubble Space Telescope is back up and running – but perhaps not for long.
The HST has been inactive since a unit that controls instruments and formats their output failed a month ago. Engineers got the telescope back online at the end of October by switching to a back-up unit, allowing it to start taking pictures again.
But no one knows how long the previously unused back-up will keep working – and a replacement control system due to be fitted by astronauts during a fourth and final servicing mission next February has itself been found to have “glitches”, delaying the…
