NEXT month, space shuttle astronauts will cut the power on the Hubble Space
Telescope for the first time since it went into orbit. But no-one is sure if
Hubble will come back to life when the power is switched back on again.
The telescope cannot survive long in orbit without power, and shutting down
the craft’s systems completely isn’t something Hubble’s designers ever
anticipated. The shutdown is necessary because its solar panels are being
replaced with more efficient arrays that will generate extra power for new
cosmos-probing instruments. To handle it, the ageing power control unit that
regulated Hubble’s electricity…
