Engineers Work to Fix Hubble’s Main Camera

The main camera on the Hubble Space Telescope, which has revolutionized astronomy with its stunning pictures of the universe, has stopped operating, engineers who work on the camera said.

The Advanced Camera for Surveys, a third-generation instrument installed by a space shuttle crew in 2002, went off-line Monday, and engineers are still trying to figure out what happened and how to repair it.

Engineers are hopeful the problem can be fixed, said Ed Campion, a NASA spokesman at Goddard Space Flight Center outside Baltimore. The loss of the camera has not shut down the telescope entirely, he said.