Dr. Rachel Osten, the deputy head of the Hubble mission, said it had been a “very stressful weekend.”
“First step is to try to bring back the last gyro, which had been off, and is being problematic,” Osten said on Twitter.
NASA said staff at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and the Space Telescope Science Institute were conducting tests and analysis to get the gyro working again.
NASA said if they are unable to recover the malfunctioning gyro Hubble will resume science operations using just one device.
“While reduced-gyro mode offers less sky coverage at any particular time, there is relatively limited impact on the overall scientific capabilities,” NASA said.
Hubble has made numerous outstanding observations of the cosmos since it was deployed in 1990.
The James Webb Space Telescope, the successor to Hubble, is scheduled to be launched in March 2021.