The Hubble Space Telescope fortuitously failed at the best possible time two weeks ago, right before astronauts went into space for what will be its final maintenance mission. Even though the mission has been delayed until February, which is costing NASA $10 million a month, the failure’s timing has allowed scientists to include it in the mission plan.

Meanwhile scientists at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland are trying to kick-start the backup. Even though the main, or Side A, Control Unit/Science Data Formatter unit broke down beyond repair, there’s also a backup, Side B, which scientists are now set to try and bring online. The process is delicate and requires the remote rerouting and rewiring of several connections inside the Hubble, pending which the Space Telescope is to remain in its automatically-assumed ‘safe mode’, a limited-function mode in which it has been since the CU/SDF failed on October the 1^st. Add to that the fact that the Side B backup hasn’t been turned on since it was installed in the Hubble 18 years ago, all the while being pelted by open space radiation.

If the backup switch, scheduled for Wednesday, succeeds the telescope will come out of safe mode and start transmitting data back down to NASA again. Art Whipple, manager of the Hubble systems management office, is confident the backup system will work but "it's obviously a possibility that things will not come up." If this happens, the Hubble Space Telescope will remain in safe mode and thus inoperational till the repair mission comes up into orbit and installs a replacement unit. NASA says that if the reboot works, they’ll keep using the backup unit even when the replacement is installed by astronauts in February.