In May 2009, the then-25-year-old Hubble Space Telescope suffered a computer failure that caused one of its gyroscopes to fail. 

Hubble’s gyroscopes help the telescope maintain its orientation in space. Without them, Hubble would be unable to take accurate pictures. 

Nasa officials attempted to fix the problem by sending commands to the telescope’s computer, but the computer failed to respond. 

For the next two weeks, Hubble remained in a stable but unusable state. 

In June 2009, a team of engineers from Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory succeeded in fixing the computer problem by sending new software to the telescope. 

The new …