NASA continues to be working to grasp a glitch that took devices on a venerable space observatory out of fee.
On Oct. 25, the science devices on the Hubble Space Telescope went into secure mode, based on a quick assertion launched that day. In an extended assertion posted on Monday (Nov. 2), NASA supplied further particulars about the glitch and the company’s plan to find out and deal with the trigger to return the observatory to regular operations.
“NASA is continuing to investigate why the instruments in the Hubble Space Telescope recently went into safe mode configuration, suspending science operations,” company personnel wrote within the full statement. “The instruments are healthy and will remain in safe mode while the mission team continues its investigation.”
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According to the brand new assertion, the devices went offline at 2:38 a.m. EDT (0638 GMT) on Oct. 25. But the company additionally famous one thing it hadn’t beforehand: {that a} comparable glitch had occurred two days prior however been resolved shortly.
“Hubble’s science instruments issued error codes at 1:46 a.m. EDT Oct. 23, indicating the loss of a specific synchronization message,” the assertion reads. “This message provides timing information the instruments use to correctly respond to data requests and commands. The mission team reset the instruments, resuming science operations the following morning.”
When the difficulty recurred, the error codes indicated “multiple losses of synchronization messages,” the assertion notes, and the science devices adopted programming to routinely put themselves into secure mode.
According to the assertion, Hubble personnel on the bottom are persevering with to investigate spacecraft information and are additionally engaged on procedures that ought to end in extra information to check; that work will take no less than per week to finish.
Hubble launched in April 1990; since then, it has weathered numerous points. The observatory was designed in order that astronauts aboard NASA’s space shuttles might go to the power to conduct repairs and upgrades; the final such mission flew in 2009 and the spacecraft has been maintained solely from the bottom within the years since.
This present situation seems much less critical than a pc glitch that Hubble skilled this summer time that affected all the observatory, sidelining it for greater than a month and requiring the crew to modify Hubble to its backup {hardware}.
Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or observe her on Twitter @meghanbartels. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
