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A comment on Hubble telescope has new lease on life after computer swap appears to fix glitch. Parent comment

Re:Hubble telescope has new lease on life after computer swa... by petertodd on Friday July 16, 2021 @04:36PM (#27860921)
> My grandfather worked on the Hubble's mirror - the part with all the controversy. It was, simultaneously, both what he was most proud of and most ashamed.

I think a simple way to explain what your grandfather should feel proud of, is they documented the construction process so thoroughly that they were able to _precisely_ figure out what they did wrong, and fix it, on their first try!

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Re:Hubble telescope has new lease on life after computer swa... by CWuestefeld on Friday July 16, 2021 @05:34PM (#27861495)
That's a really positive way to frame it. Thanks for the perspective.
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Re:Hubble telescope has new lease on life after computer swa... by chasd00 on Friday July 16, 2021 @07:33PM (#27862363)
From what I recall the mirror was built to spec, it was the spec that was wrong not the mirror. Do I have that backwards?
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Re:Hubble telescope has new lease on life after computer swa... by abestic9 on Friday July 16, 2021 @10:16PM (#27863107)
The mirror was precisely polished "to spec" with custom-built equipment that was assembled incorrectly. They correctly saw the distortion issue on the ground with the conventional kit, but rejected the result as erroneous because it tested fine with the "better" testing equipment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope#Origin_...

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Re:Hubble telescope has new lease on life after computer swa... by NickNameNick on Friday July 16, 2021 @10:19PM (#27863122)
I thought that the instrument used to measure the curvature of the mirror was mis-calibrated.
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Re:Hubble telescope has new lease on life after computer swa... by ArnoVW on Saturday July 17, 2021 @09:55AM (#27865787)
Yes. A tiny area of paint was chipped. Unfortunately that meant that the distance was increased by the distance of the layer of paint.
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