UNITED STATES: The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST or Webb), which was launched in December 2021 and had been conducting scientific observations since July 2022, has awed the world with its breathtaking images and ground-breaking data.
NASA stated on January 24 that the Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS) instrument on the JWST “experienced a communications delay within the instrument, forcing its flight software to time out” on January 15. NIRISS cannot currently be utilised for science, the statement emphasised.
The observatory and other instruments are all in good condition, according to NASA officials, and there is no sign that the hardware is in any danger. The postponed science observations will be affected.
According to the announcement, NASA is collaborating with the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), which helped build NIRISS, to find a solution.
According to NASA, NIRISS has four different operating modes that it can use normally. It can act as a camera when the other instruments on JWST are being used.
Additionally, it contains functions for high-contrast imaging, analysing light fingerprints to examine the atmospheres of tiny exoplanets and a mode for locating far-off galaxies.
NIRISS is not the only JWST instrument that is having issues. In August, frictional symptoms were first noticed in the observatory’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI).
Since the wheel is only used in one of the instrument’s four observing modes, personnel paused those observations while continuing MIRI’s operation in its other three modes.
By the end of November, technicians had located the source of the issue and were developing instructions for using the impacted mode, the Medium Resolution Spectrometer.
A bug that stopped scientists from doing science observations and kept the telescope in safe mode also caused the observatory problems for two weeks in December.
The observatory’s attitude control system, which controls the spacecraft’s direction of rotation, was found to have a software bug as the source of the issue.
After resolving that issue, the observatory resumed regular operations on December 20, according to a NASA news statement at the time.
The NIRISS statement was made exactly one year after JWST arrived at its outpost at Earth-sun Lagrange point 2, which is located around one million miles (1.5 million kilometres) from the Earth on the side opposite the sun.
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