NASA X-ray Space Telescope back online after brief shutdown

NASA X-ray Space Telescope back online after brief shutdown
This illustration made available by NASA shows the Chandra X-ray Observatory. The space telescope is back in business after a two-day shutdown. NASA said Monday, Oct. 15, 2018, that the telescope came back online Friday. (NASA/CXC/SAO via AP, File)

One of NASA's space telescopes is back in business after a two-day shutdown.

NASA said Monday that the Chandra X-ray Observatory came back online Friday. Chandra's trouble occurred less than a week after the Hubble Space Telescope was sidelined. In both cases, the problem was in the pointing system.

Officials say a glitch in one of Chandra's gyroscopes generated three seconds of bad computer data last Wednesday. That was enough for the 19-year-old telescope to go into so-called safe mode, during which science observations cease. Flight controllers restored Chandra's pointing by switching to a backup gyroscope.

Observations are expected to resume with Chandra by the end of this week. Hubble, meanwhile, remains out of action with a more serious gyroscope issue that cropped up Oct. 5.

© 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Citation: NASA X-ray Space Telescope back online after brief shutdown (2018, October 15) retrieved 28 March 2024 from https://phys.org/news/2018-10-nasa-x-ray-space-telescope-online.html
This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.

Explore further

Another NASA space telescope shuts down in orbit

133 shares

Feedback to editors