The Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Systems, its main eye, is expected to resume operations on July 2 if everything goes according to plan. The ACS will switch to its back-up power which will hopefully correct the electronic snafu that caused the camera to malfunction since June 19.

Hubble's Advanced Camera for Systems, or ACS, entered a "safe mode" last June 19 forcing NASA engineers to cease its operations although its other cameras continued to work. The switch to the backup power has already been made and NASA will know by today whether the reconfiguration has worked."We expect the reconfiguration will likely clear the problem with the ACS, but we do realize that it is possible that this reconfiguration will not restore the operation," said Ed Ruitberg of the Goddard Space Flight Center. "In that case, we will learn a lot more about the problem and the potential solution."

NASA officials remained optimistic that the ACS will continue to function until Hubble's next servicing mission in 2007. "The ACS was designed with a 5-year lifetime; we're well into year four and only just now are we having to begin to use the redundant capabilities. So I'm hoping it has a good long lifetime to go," Ruitberg said.