2008/10/21

译稿:哈勃太空望远镜再次发生宕机,可能要到明年二月才能进行修复

Hubble Space Telescope crashes again, and fix may not come until February
哈勃太空望远镜再次发生宕机,可能要到明年二月才能进行修复

The 18-year-old Hubble Space Telescope hasn't sent any pictures for the past three weeks, and fixing the system in outer space hasn't exactly gone as smoothly as NASA officials hoped. Restoration of the telescope's operations fot hampered by a couple of unexplained problems -- or "anomalies," in NASA-speak -- earlier this week.

年届 18 岁的哈勃太空望远镜在过去的三周没有发回任何图片,而且在外太空进行系统修复并未完全如NASA(美国太空总署)官员所愿的那样进行得顺利。本周早些时候据NASA称,由于几个无法解释的问题或“异常状况”阻碍了对望远镜运行进行恢复。

On Wednesday, flight controllers at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD started to reinstate data transmsission for the telescope. To work around an inital failure that happened on September 27, the engineers began reconfiguring "six components of the Hubble Data Management System and five components in the Science Instrument Command and Data Handling (SIC &DH) system to use their redundant (or B) sides," says a Hubble status report.

周三,马里兰州绿带(Greenbelt)的戈达德太空飞行中心的飞行控制人员开始恢复对望远镜的数据传输。一份哈勃状态报告称,为了临时性解决9月27日发生的一次初始故障,工程师们开始重新配置“哈勃数据管理系统的六个部件和科学仪器命令和数据处理(SIC&DH)系统中的五个部件,以使用其冗余(或B)侧。”

Progress seemed fine until Thursday afternoon, until the two "anomalies" -- maybe related, or maybe not -- struck, one right after the other. First, a low-voltage power supply problem stopped the engineers from rebooting the telescope. Then, less than four hours later, all operations ceased entirely.
直到周四下午时,进展似乎都非常顺利,在这个时候接连发生两起“异常状况”——可能有关也可能无关。首先,一个低压供电问题导致工程师无法重新启动望远镜。接着,不到四小时之后,所有操作彻底停止。

"At 1:40 pm, when the low voltage power supply to the ACS Solar Blind Channel was commanded on, software running in a microprocessor in ACS detected an incorrect voltage level in the Solar Blind Channel and suspended ACS," said the report.

报告称,“下午1:40,在对调查用高级摄像机太阳能盲信道(ACS Solar Blind Channel)启动低压供电时, ACS 的一个微处理器上运行的软件检测到太阳能盲信道出现不正常的电压电平,然后暂停了 ACS 的运行。”

"Then at 5:14 pm, the Hubble spacecraft computer sensed the loss of a 'keep alive' signal from the NASA Standard Spacecraft Computer in the SIC&DH and correctly responded by safing the NSSC-I and the science instruments."

“然后在下午 5:14,哈勃航天器计算机探测到SIC&DH中的NASA标准航天器计算机丢失了 “保持活动”信号,并进行正确响应,确保 NSSC-I 及科学仪器的安全。”

At a news conference on Wednesday, officials told reporters that the engineers might be able to get to the bottom of the satellite's glitches as early as the end of next week. NASA has delayed a spaceflight to Hubble that would have involved installing two new instruments and repairing two inactive ones, along with replacement aging components.

在周三的新闻发布会上,NASA官员告诉记者,工程师可能能够最早在下周周末之前查清卫星的故障。NASA 已经推迟了一次前往哈勃航天飞行,此次飞行将会安装两个新的仪器并修复两个失效的仪器,以及更换老化的部件。

That mission has now been delayed until at least February, and if NASA engineers can't get to the bottom of the software problems in the meantime, Hubble may not transmit any additional images until sometime next year.

这项任务现已至少延迟到周二,而与此同时如果NASA工程师无法查清软件问题的话,那么哈勃可能要到明年某个时候才能发回图像。

原文链接:http://www.betanews.com/article/Hubble_Space_Telescope_crashes_again_and_fix_may_not_come_until_February/1224283758


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