Sky and Telescope: The Hubble Space Telescope's main camera is back online, almost two weeks after a problem with its power supply forced it into safe mode. The camera was fixed when engineers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center switched the $86-million Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) to its backup electronics.
The shutdown has given NASA an opportunity to recalibrate the camera's CCD sensors to operate at a slightly lower temperature ( –77°C to –81°C). This should reduce the amount of background noise in the images by a factor of three.
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