Posted: Fri, Oct 31, 2008, 1:59 PM ET (1759 GMT)
The Hubble Space Telescope has resumed scientific observations, project officials said Thursday, although a repair mission to the orbiting telescope has been further delayed. Hubble officials released the first image taken by the telescope's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 since a computer problem took the telescope offline in late September. Engineers switched the telescope from a primary data handling computer to a backup, a process completed over the weekend. The image, of a pair of galaxies called Arp 147 that resembles the number "10" as seen from the Earth, demonstrated to scientists that the camera was working properly. The computer failure caused NASA to delay a planned Hubble servicing mission, STS-125, from mid-October to no earlier than February so that the failed computer could be replaced with a ground spare. On Thursday, though, NASA officials said the mission would be delayed again, to at least May, because of problems getting the space computer checked out for the mission.
