NASA X-ray Space Telescope back online after brief shutdown
By Marcia Dunn, The Associated Press
This illustration made available by NASA shows the Chandra X-ray Observatory. On Friday, Oct. 12, 2018, the space agency said that the telescope automatically went into so-called safe mode on Wednesday, possibly because of a gyroscope problem. (NASA/CXC/SAO via AP)
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — 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.
So what does the telescope do? Below are some highlights of Chandra’s work: