Did you know that Hubble has been non-operational during this last October due to a gyroscope failure?

One of the three remaining operational gyroscopes failed, leading to the telescope going into safe mode until engineers could solve the problem. The official Hubble mission is technically over, so any failure that cannot be fixed remotely will be a death sentence for the aging space platform.(There are still two other gyroscopes, but each loss significantly reduces accuracy of the telescope.) However they did, thankfully, managed to get it operational once again and snapped this pic.


The team of engineers that got the gyro operational again also set the telescope up to operate as the gyroscopes fail, in double and even in single gyro configuration. (A configuration that was first established for use during the Kepler mission, which suffered a gyroscope failure and then engineers figured out a way to use light pressure from the sun to counterbalance the satellite and prevent spin.)