Awful Hubble News

CNN is reporting that NASA is delaying the upcoming Hubble servicing mission till at least next year. The data handling and communications system has failed, so the telescope has stopped sending down data. This obviously needs to be fixed, but with the launch scheduled for two weeks from now, there is no time for the astronauts to practice doing the repair. The astronauts spend months and months of time training to do repairs (in the very nifty Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory), and you can't just say "Oh, while you're up there, do you mind putting a bit of duct tape over here? Thanks much!". The repair process needs to be designed as well. NASA thinks they can get a backup control channel working in a few weeks, in which case more data can come down in the interim. On the other hand, there's no plan for observations during the coming year ...