The Hubble Space Telescope has lost a majority of its gyroscopes

Enlarge / Hubble Space Telescope above Earth, photographed during STS-125, Servicing Mission 4, May 2009. (credit: NASA)

The venerable Hubble Space Telescope is running out of gyroscopes, and when none are left, the instrument will cease to conduct meaningful science.

To preserve the telescope, which has been operating in space for nearly three and a half decades, NASA announced Tuesday that it will reduce the Hubble's operations such that it will function on just a single gyroscope. This will limit some scientific operations, and it will take longer to point the telescope to new objects and lock onto them.

But in a conference call with space reporters, Hubble officials stressed that the beloved scientific instrument is not going anywhere anytime soon.