NASA’s 18 year old space telescope, Hubble, has encountered some more trouble after some updates designed to repair the telescope went according to plan. More precisely, NASA engineers tried a full revival of the telescope but after some steps forward they reached a full halt as the telescope presented some anomalies in its electronic systems.

Last month, the system that allowed commands and information to flow to the telescope and back failed and since then the flow of data has been interrupted. Scientists could still give commands to Hubble but the flow of imagery was cut off.

Unfortunately, this last turn of events postponed the launch of space shuttle Atlantis which was due this week. To solve the initials problems with the telescope, the scientists at NASA devised a plan in which they would use the back-up system, known as Side B, for data flow instead of Side A, the main system used for data transmission.

At that moment everything went according to plan, Side B was working fine but just as scientists began calibrating the instruments on the telescope, Hubble was in trouble yet again. This is the moment when scientists spotted the two anomalies in the telescope’s electronic systems.

Currently, all of Hubble’s payloads are in safe mode, as scientists perform the troubleshooting. If the telescope is going to be fully functional, it may receive some major technical updates the following year as a spare unit is being constructed and it will be delivered and installed on the telescope using Atlantis. The plan for Hubble is that, Side B and Side A will remain as they are now, Side A being the back-up.