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Journalism of Courage
NASA said on Wednesday that it is working on restarting the Hubble Space Telescope’s science operations after it entered safe mode because of an issue with its gyroscope. The telescope’s instruments are stable and it is otherwise in good health.
Hubble automatically entered safe mode on November 23 when one of its three gyroscopes gave faulty readings. Those three gyroscopes measure its turn rates and are crucial to a system that makes sure the telescope is pointed in the right direction. Science operations are paused while in safe mode as the telescope now waits for new directions. But that was not the first time it went into safe mode.
Hubble went into safe mode first on November 13 but the telescope operations team recovered the spacecraft. They had to suspend science operations again on November 21. After another recovery it went into safe mode again on November 23, in which it has remained since then.
Despite being eclipsed by its more capable sibling, the James Webb Space Telescope, Hubble continues to do important science work. While people may think of Webb as the replacement for Hubble, the space agency itself prefers to call it a successor.
The James Webb Space Telescope, with its four scientific instruments, will observe primarily in the infrared range and provide coverage of light with wavelengths from 0.6 to 28 microns. The instruments on Hubble see mainly in the ultraviolet and visible part of the spectrum. It could observe only a small range in the infrared from 0.8 to 2.5 microns.
