NASA has found a marriage of spare parts for the Hubble

The quality of spare parts needed to repair the Hubble, may be unsatisfactory, said the magazine New Scientist. This could further delay the dispatch of aid to repair mission.

On the night of 27 to 28 September at the orbital telescope has been breaking the module responsible for the exchange of information between the scientific instruments for the telescope. As the project manager Hubble Preston Birch (Preston Burch) magazine New Scientist, a copy of the module, stored in the Earth's Goddard Space Flight Center, may be defective.

Birch argues that the planned verification of the device in 1990 and 2001 revealed the work of errors that later were never resolved. In addition, the original module Hubble used the device, data storage that does not depend on power supply. As a fallback solution using CMOS-technology, similar to worked on the basis of which the memory of modern computers. This memory is energy, that is, after turning off data irretrievably lost.

Before the breakdowns planned, that start the repair mission to the telescope will be held in October. To repair astronauts into orbit was to deliver the shuttle Atlantis. Damage to forced NASA to postpone the launch until December 2009. Birch argues that if the data on marriage spare module confirmed, NASA plans to launch the December "may be overly optimistic."

The new shuttle launch should be the last in his career. " In addition, because of the increased risk of collision with space debris, it must become the most dangerous.