electronic slumber
n.— «Meanwhile, the latest gyroscope failure forced the space telescope into an electronic slumber called a “safe mode.” The operating mode ensures that the telescope continues to generate electricity for its scientific equipment and flight controls, though it is unable to point at celestial targets.» —“Space Chronicle: Failed gyroscope puts Hubble into slumber” by Mark Carreau Houston Chronicle (Texas) Nov. 15, 1999. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Outer space, used with its modern meaning, appears as early as the 1840s in a poem by Emmeline Stuart-Wortley. Soon after, Alexander von Humboldt was using variations on it in his writings about the cosmos. By 1901, H.G. Wells was using outer space...
Need a book to lift you out of this world? Try Orbital (Bookshop|Amazon). In it, Booker-winning novelist Samantha Harvey imagines the moment-to-moment experience of living on a space station, a mixture of the mundane and the majestic, 250 miles...