activity, and its resounding success was an enormous boon for NASA, as well as for the astronomers who now had a fully capable space telescope.[edit] Servicing Mission 2Main article: STS-82Servicing Mission 2, flown by Discovery (STS-82) in February 1997, replaced the GHRS and the FOS with the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) and the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS), replaced an Engineering and Science Tape Recorder with a new Solid State Recorder, repaired thermal insulation and again boosted Hubble's orbit.[68] NICMOS contained a heat sink of solid nitrogen to reduce the thermal noise from the instrument, but shortly after it was installed, an unexpected thermal expansion resulted in part of the heat sink coming into contact with an optical baffle. This led to an increased warming rate for the instrument and reduced its original expected lifetime of 4.5 years to about 2 years.[69][edit] Servicing Mission 3AMain article: STS-103Servicing Mission 3A flown by Discovery (STS-103), took place in December 1999, and was a split-off from Servicing Mission 3 after three of the six onboard gyroscopes had failed. (A fourth failed a few weeks before the mission, rendering the telescope incapable of performing science observations.) The mission replaced all six gyroscopes, replaced a Fine Guidance Sensor and the computer, installed a Voltage/temperature Improvement Kit (VIK) to prevent battery overcharging, and replaced thermal insulation blankets.[70] Although the new computer is hardly a powerhouse (a 25 MHz radiation hardened Intel 486 with two megabytes of RAM), it is still 20 times faster, with six times more memory, than the DF-224 it replaced. The new computer increases throughput by moving some computing tasks from the ground to the spacecraft, and saves money by allowing the use of modern programming languages.[71][edit] Servicing Mission 3BMain article: STS-109Servicing Mission 3B flown by Columbia (STS-109) in March 2002 saw the installation of a new instrument, with the FOC (the last original instrument) being replaced by the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). This meant that COSTAR was no longer required, since all new instruments had correction for the main mirror aberration built in.[65]The mission also saw the revival of NICMOS, which had run out of coolant in 1999. A new cooling system was installed that reduced the instrument's temperature enough for it to be usable again. Although not as cold as its original design called for, the temperature is more stable, in many ways a better tradeoff.[69] ACS in particular enhanced Hubble's capabilities; it and the revived NICMOS together imaged the Hubble Ultra Deep Field.The mission replaced the solar arrays for the second time. The new arrays were derived from those built for the Iridium comsat system and were only two-thirds the size of the old arrays, resulting in less drag against the tenuous reaches of the upper atmosphere while providing 30 percent more power. The additional power allowed all instruments on board the HST to be run simultaneously, and reduced a vibration problem that occurred when the old, less rigid arrays entered and left direct sunlight. Hubble's Power Distribution Unit was also replaced in order to correct a problem