NASA tries to reboot Hubble telescope

NASA was scheduled to attempt yesterday to revive the $2 billion Hubble Space Telescope, which was idled two weeks ago by an equipment failure, officials said on Tuesday.

The breakdown of a computer needed to relay science data to Earth prompted NASA to postpone until next year a long-awaited space shuttle mission to upgrade the orbital observatory. That flight, which had been slated for liftoff on Tuesday, was rescheduled for February.

Engineers plan to send commands to the telescope early yesterday to switch over to a backup computer that has not even been turned on since before the telescope arrived in orbit 18 years ago.