Nearly a month after the Hubble Telescope went blind in space, Nasa has managed to recover the second instrument from the blackout to resume science operations. The telescope went into safe mode, suspending science ops onboard on October 25, and the agency has been working since to recover it from the dead.

The telescope team managed to recover the Wide Field Camera 3 instrument and will perform its first operation on Tuesday since the shutdown. This is the second instrument to be brought out of safe mode after the Advanced Camera for Surveys was recovered a couple of weeks ago.

“The team chose to restore the most heavily used Hubble instrument, the Wide Field Camera 3, which represents more than a third of the spacecraft’s observing time,” Nasa said in an update, adding that engineers also began preparing changes to the instrument parameters while testing the changes on ground simulators. These changes would allow the instruments to handle several missed synchronization messages.

WHY IS HUBBLE TELESCOPE IN SAFE MODE?

The Hubble telescope went into safe mode on October 25 after it was briefly restored following a similar glitch on October 23. The error code coming from the science instrument onboard indicated multiple losses of synchronisation messages. These messages provide timing information that the instruments used to correctly respond to data requests and commands.

Following this, the telescope went into safe mode.

Hubble had gone dark in June earlier this year as well. The month-long shut down was due to a faulty payload computer onboard Hubble that coordinates science operations. When the main computer failed to receive a signal from the payload computer on June 13, it automatically placed Hubble’s science instruments into safe mode, making it blind in space.

RESTORING HUBBLE

The Hubble team had earlier restored the Advanced Camera for Surveys instrument used for wide-field imagery in visible wavelengths. The instrument has continued collecting science data since it was recovered.

“During the past week, the Hubble team has identified near-term changes that could be made to how the instruments monitor and respond to missed synchronization messages, as well as to how the payload computer monitors the instruments. This would allow science operations to continue even if several missed messages occur,” Nasa said in an update.

The spacecraft has three types of instruments cameras, spectrographs and interferometers that work in tandem to investigate the vast reaches of the universe. The Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS)and the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) capture a wide-field view of the universe. Meanwhile, the Spectrographs onboard the Hubble break light down to its component parts, similar to how a prism splits white light into a rainbow.

“Although the team has identified no further message losses since monitoring began November 1, Nasa is taking extra steps to keep the hardware safe in case the issue reoccurs. Investigation continues into the cause of the missed messages. The remaining Hubble instruments are still in safe mode and the rest of the spacecraft continues to operate as expected,” the American space agency said.