The famous space telescope Hubble is facing difficulties: one of its key instruments, programmed to store and send data, has stopped working. This is one of the tell-tale signs that Hubble has fulfilled its duty and should soon “retire”.

A repair mission was scheduled for the 14th of October, but due to this new development, it has been postponed. Before sending people out to into space to repair a telescope, scientists must first assess the damage and plan not one, but several mending possibilities. Not to mention the careful preparations required for carrying the instruments needed out into space. It would not bode well for NASA if scientists were high up there, reporting back to Earth that they’re missing the French wrench.

The telescope has been fulfilling its tasks as flawless as one might expect from a telescope designed and built on Earth, then launched into space, and has been doing so for almost two decades (Hubble was launched in 1990). The question raised is whether it’s better to keep fixing Hubble or to design, engineer and launch a new space telescope to replace Hubble. At the fast rate of developments in technology, a new telescope would meet the increasingly high expectations of the scientists and public.

Some reasons for Hubble’s deterioration have been identified as of late. One would be the high temperatures it was to work under, while another is its constant exposure to radiations. So far, Hubble has undergone three repair missions, and the one initially scheduled for the 14th of October would have been the fourth.

So far, Hubble has experienced a number of problems: electrical failures, replacement of batteries and gyroscopes and several new instruments, a faulty camera and spectrograph, to mention some of them. Its latest issues have caused the telescope to enter its “safe mode” and stop transmitting altogether.