Gyro sacrifice may extend Hubble's life 11:59 24 February 2005 Engineers are testing whether the Hubble Space Telescope should clip its own wings in an attempt to survive as long as possible without a servicing mission. Preliminary results suggest the new, scaled-down operating mode will buy the telescope an extra year of life - possibly until the end of 2008 - without sacrificing too much science. The telescope was originally designed to use three of its six gyroscopes to point and stabilise itself in space. But these devices regularly break down - astronauts have replaced them twice. Now, the 15-year-old...