Each spacecraft glitches sometimes, and even probably the most highly effective space telescope ever launched is not immune.
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST or Webb) launched in December 2021 and has been conducting science observations since July 2022, gorgeous the world with its attractive photos and revolutionary information. However on Jan. 15, JWST’s Close to Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS) instrument “skilled a communications delay throughout the instrument, inflicting its flight software program to outing,” based on a Jan. 24 statement (opens in new tab) from NASA. NIRISS cannot at the moment be used for science, the assertion famous.
“There isn’t any indication of any hazard to the {hardware}, and the observatory and different devices are all in good well being,” NASA officers wrote. “The affected science observations might be rescheduled.”
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NIRISS is a contribution from the Canadian Area Company (CSA), so NASA and CSA personnel are collaborating to troubleshoot the problem, the assertion notes.
Beneath regular circumstances, NIRISS can function in four different modes (opens in new tab), based on NASA. It could function as a digicam when JWST’s different devices are occupied, it may possibly analyze mild signatures to check the atmospheres of small exoplanets, it may possibly conduct high-contrast imaging, and it has a mode tailor-made to discovering distant galaxies.
NIRISS is not the primary instrument on JWST to run into bother. In August, a grating wheel inside the observatory’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) began exhibiting indicators of friction. The wheel is utilized in solely one of many instrument’s 4 observing modes, so personnel paused these observations whereas persevering with MIRI’s work in its different three modes.
By November, engineers had tracked down the reason for the problem and begun growing pointers for safely utilizing the affected mode, referred to as the Medium Decision Spectrometer.
As well as, in December, the observatory spent two weeks plagued by a glitch that repeatedly despatched the telescope into protected mode, interrupting science observations. Engineers traced the problem to a software program glitch within the observatory’s angle management system, which controls the route the spacecraft factors.
The observatory returned to regular operations from that concern on Dec. 20, based on a NASA assertion on the time.
The NIRISS announcement got here exactly a 12 months after JWST arrived at its outpost, Earth-sun Lagrange point 2, which is positioned practically 1 million miles (1.5 million kilometers) away from the Earth on the aspect reverse the sun.
E mail Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or comply with her on Twitter @meghanbartels. Comply with us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
