Sept 29, 2008

Allard Beutel Kennedy Space Center, Fla 321-867-2468 allard beutel@nasa gov

Don Savage/J D Harrington Headquarters, Washington 202-358-0183/5241 donald l savage@nasa gov, j d harrington@nasa gov

John Yembrick/Michael Curie Headquarters, Washington 202-358-0602/4715 john yembrick-1@nasa gov, michael curie@nasa gov

MEDIA ADVISORY: M08-187

NASA TO DISCUSS HUBBLE ANOMALY AND SERVICING MISSION LAUNCH DELAY

WASHINGTON -- NASA will host a media teleconference at 6 p m EDT today to discuss a significant Hubble Space Telescope anomaly that occurred this weekend affecting the storage and transmittal of science data to Earth Fixing the problem will delay next month's space shuttle Atlantis Hubble servicing mission

The briefing participants are: - Ed Weiler, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington - John Shannon, Shuttle Program manager at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston - Preston Burch, Hubble manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md

To participate in the teleconference, reporters in the U S should call 1-800-369-6087 and use the pass code Hubble International reporters should call 1-773-756-0843

As a result of the launch delay, NASA has postponed the planned Oct 3 Flight Readiness Review and subsequent news conference The review will occur at a later date

The malfunctioning system is Hubble's Control Unit/Science Data Formatter - Side A Shortly after 8 p m on Saturday, Sept 27, the telescope's spacecraft computer issued commands to safe the payload computer and science instruments when errors were detected within the Science Data Formatter An attempt to reset the formatter and obtain a dump of the payload computer's memory was unsuccessful

Additional testing demonstrates Side A no longer supports the transfer of science data to the ground A transition to the redundant Side B should restore full functionality to the science instruments and operations

The transition to Side B operations is complex It requires that five other modules used in managing data also be switched to their B-side systems The B-sides of these modules last were activated during ground tests in the late 1980s and/or early 1990, prior to launch

The Hubble operations team has begun work on the Side B transition and believes it will be ready to reconfigure Hubble later this week The transition will happen after the team completes a readiness review

Hubble could return to science operations in the immediate future if the reconfiguration is successful Even so, the agency is investigating the possibility of flying a back-up replacement system, which could be installed during the servicing mission

Audio of the teleconference will be streamed live at:

http://www nasa gov/newsaudio

Related images for the briefing will be available at:

http://www nasa gov/hubble

For more information about the Space Shuttle Program, visit:

http://www nasa gov/shuttle

-end-

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