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The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST or Webb) experienced a second instrument disturbance on January 15, 2023. Photo/NASA/Space
NASA in an official statement on January 24 2023 said that the NIRISS instrument cannot currently be used for scientific purposes. NIRISS is a contribution from the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), currently NASA and CSA personnel are collaborating to solve this interference problem.
“There is no indication of harm to the hardware, and the observatory and other instruments are all in good health. Affected science observations will be rescheduled,” NASA wrote.
NASA explained, under normal conditions, NIRISS can operate in four different modes. NIRISS can operate as a camera when other JWST instruments are used, can analyze light signatures to study the atmospheres of small exoplanets, can perform high-contrast imaging, and has a customized mode to find distant galaxies.
NIRISS isn’t the first instrument at JWST to run into problems. In August, the lattice wheels inside the observatory’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) started showing signs of friction.
The wheels were only used in one of the instrument’s four observing modes, so NASA personnel stopped observing. They continued MIRI’s work in the other three modes.
Also read; The James Webb Telescope Has Been Hit by Space Rocks 19 Times, Causing Permanent Damage
By November, engineers had tracked down the cause of the problem. Then they started developing a guide for using in safe mode, called the Intermediate Resolution Spectrometer.
However, in December, the James Webb telescope for two weeks remained subject to repeated disturbances in safe mode. Engineers traced the issue to a software glitch in the observatory’s attitude control system, and resumed normal operations on December 20, 2022.
(wib)
