FGS/NIRISS was built by the Canadian Space Agency. Credit: CSA Posted on 02/05/2023 12:20:32 AM PST by LibWhacker
The James Webb Space Telescope is back to full science operations. One of the telescope’s instruments, the Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS) had been offline since January 15 due to a communications error. But engineers worked through the problem and were able to return the instrument to full operations.
“NASA and CSA [Canadian Space Agency] partnered to approach the problem as technically possible, using a detailed consideration of all areas of operation of the instrument,” said Julie Van Campen, Webb Integrated Science Instrument Module (ISIM) systems engineer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, in a blog post update.
The instrument, built by CSA, was returned to full operations on January 31. The problem began when a communications delay within the science instrument caused its flight software to time out. Engineers determined the cause of the issue was a hit by a galactic cosmic ray, a form of high-energy radiation from outside our solar system that can sometimes disrupt electrical systems.
FGS/NIRISS was built by the Canadian Space Agency. Credit: CSA
Van Campen said encountering cosmic rays is a normal and expected part of operating any spacecraft, and that this cosmic ray event affected logic in the solid-state circuitry of NIRISS electronics known as the Field Programmable Gate Array. JWST engineers determined that rebooting the instrument would bring it back to full functionality.
“They analyzed all possible methods to safely recover the electronics. When performing the operation, reviews were held at each intermediate step,” she said. “We are now happy to report that Webb’s NIRISS instrument is back online, and is performing optimally.”
NIRISS has two capabilities: Wide-Field Slitless Spectroscopy, which involves capturing the overall spectrum of a wide field of view such as a field of stars, part of a nearby galaxy, or many galaxies at once. Its Single-Object Slitless Spectroscopy capabilities involves capturing the spectrum of a single bright object like a star in a field of view.
While JWST has been performing magnificently, this isn’t the first technical issues that engineers have had to deal with. It went into safe mode from December 7-20, 2022 due to a software fault in the telescope’s attitude control system. The telescope’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) was also briefly non-operational last September due to increased friction in one of MIRI’s mechanisms in the Medium-Resolution Spectroscopy (MRS) mode. Engineers were able to remotely repair and come up with work-arounds for all issues so far.
So basically they unplugged it, then plugged it back in.
CC
But here’s the bad news:
The James Webb Space Telescope smashed into Nomad.
It is currently looking for Earth to “sterilize” that which is in error.
If Nomad scans KJP and/or AOC.........Earth is doomed! DOOMED I tell ya!
Glad to read this, NASA (gummit of course) has been terribly slow about this for us science/space fans. For those that are perpetual students about things Universe related there are three spectacular youtube channels with great graphics; SEA, Kosmo and Astrum, there are many more.
Also it should be noted that the Webb space telescope was crazy expensive and quite a lengthy process costing billions, our worthless, sickening congress piles that much on the $31 trillion debt in a week, which is money better spent?
When in doubt...reboot.
Take a moment to appreciate that the JW telescope is parked at a LaGrange point, not in a regular orbit, and not on the surface of some other world in our solar system with gravity and manipulable tools. We’ll likely never see it again in person. And yet we can still resolve complicated technical issues.
If it erases their brains, maybe they’ll relearn better values!
One consultant on a computer problem said "There's your problem. You've got Windows on here."
After some more thought I couldn't disagree.
Hmmm...
My conspiracy antenna tells me they might be “recalibrating” the instruments currently bringing in data that Big Bang never happened.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdJ3RFXE2_0&t=377s
NASA personnel were scared slitless for a while...
Woohoo!!!
Now that’s funny! (and likewise outrageous, but not unexpected of that crowd)
Thanks for those YouTube references... Will definitely be checking them out!
Lol!
Just to let you know (it deserves acknowledgment), I chuckled and am still chuckling hours later whenever I think about it. :-)
Thank you, I’m here all week! Try the cheesecake!
CC
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.