James Webb Space Telescope suffers another hitch: Instrument down
- Reference: 1674709568
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/01/26/jwst_instrument_failure/
- Source link:
"On Sunday, January 15, the James Webb Space Telescope's [1]NIRISS experienced a communications delay within the instrument, causing its flight software to time out," NASA [2]confirmed in a statement this week.
"The instrument is currently unavailable for science observations while NASA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) work together to determine and correct the root cause of the delay. There is no indication of any danger to the hardware, and the observatory and other instruments are all in good health."
[3]
Together with the Fine Guidance Sensor, the NIRISS allows the telescope to point its cameras and instruments precisely to capture light from objects deep in space. The spectrograph operates at near-infrared wavelengths, and is a specialized instrument that can resolve light from individual objects that otherwise appear quite close together.
[4]The years fly by on first exoplanet confirmed by James Webb Space Telescope
[5]NASA's meteor avoidance plan for James Webb Space Telescope: Turn it around
[6]Literally, look who's back: A comet that last swung by Earth 50,000 years ago
[7]We've seen things you people wouldn't believe. A planet, dense as a marshmallow, that would float on water
Astronomers use the NIRISS to detect exoplanets as well as capture wide-field images to study populations of stars and galaxies. But boffins who were in the middle of using the telescope's instrument or planning to will have to wait until it comes back online. The glitch, unfortunately, will mean precious observation times allotted to astronomers will have to be adjusted.
NIRISS was built by the Canadian Space Agency, and is sensitive enough to study the atmospheres of exoplanets. The first set of images taken by the JWST, [8]revealed by NASA back in July last year, showed it had managed to detect water and hazy clouds on the hot gas giant WASP-96b.
[9]
Launched on Christmas Day in 2021, the years-late, multi-billion-dollar JWST is the most expensive and powerful space telescope built yet. But the machine has suffered a few glitches less than a year into its [10]operations , including a grating wheel issue that [11]temporarily took down its Mid-Infrared Instrument, as well as a software fault that impacted its attitude control system and forced it to enter [12]safe mode for a few weeks.
Unlike Hubble, the JWST isn't repairable as it orbits the Sun a million miles from Earth at the second Lagrange point. The instrument has already been pelted with space debris, such as [13]micrometeoroids . The eggheads think this latest gremlin is repairable from our home world. ®
Get our [14]Tech Resources
[1] https://jwst.nasa.gov/content/observatory/instruments/fgs.html
[2] https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2023/01/24/near-infrared-imager-and-slitless-spectrograph-operations-update/
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Y9JdUPSAx2agOegUjX-5jQAAAM4&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/jwst_confirms_its_first_exoplanet/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/21/nasas_jwst_meteor_avoidance_plan/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/04/prehistoric_comet_makes_nakedeye_return/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/21/exoplanet_toi3757_b/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/13/james_webb_space_telescope_images/
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Y9JdUPSAx2agOegUjX-5jQAAAM4&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/05/jwst_photon/
[11] https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2022/11/08/webbs-mid-infrared-instrument-returns-to-full-functionality/
[12] https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2022/12/21/james-webb-space-telescope-operations-update/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/09/james_webb_meteoroid/
[14] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: In the third year they attacked
Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile.
Just a thought, but maybe try a little harder not to use derogatory terms in future? The people who built the JWST are scientists and engineers, not “eggheads”.
It's not derogatory. Maybe try a little harder not to be so easily offended in future.
You must be new: 'eggheads' is a term of respect around here.
Oh, we hold boffins in equally high regard - just in case you decide to have a go at that term of endearment any time soon.
Ich Bin Ein Nerd!
Cred. Jen
R2 Unit
They should have sent up an R2 unit with Webb for all those little fixes, especially if mechanical in nature.
Re: R2 Unit
What fixes the R2 unit?
Re: R2 Unit
What fixes the R2 unit?
Great R2 units have little R2 units upon their backs to right 'em. And little R2 units have lesser R2 units and so ad infinitum.
Software or Hardware
If the issue is software or firmware so can be updated without bricking the instrument any further then hopefully it can be fixed. It it is anything else then it is on a knife edge, there is only so much you can do to reboot something remotely, and this is about as remote as it gets.
Good luck to the team working on this, there is a lot at stake and there will be many people on the edge of their seats.
Re: Software or Hardware
What happened to all the remote service engineers, I think theres a good oppertunity for private indusrty to step in.
Re: Software or Hardware
They obviously forgot to take out a service contract with Homeserve.
In the third year they attacked
There's something out there that doesn't want to be seen ....