Hi, Hubble, glad to know you're fine • The Register

Our Eyes Rise from the Sky

Hubble Space Telescope. Image: NASA

Across the world, astrobots gave a sigh of relief when they heard that the Hubble Space Telescope was officially back in service.

The "green light" arrived Friday and NASA set the weekend back to work: "The observations focused on the star-shaped DSF2237B-1-IR distant galaxy and had been taken in infrared with the Wide Field Camera 3 ", says the statement in a statement.

Science demonstrated the success of all the engineering steps that the mission team performed to clear a problematic gyroscope put into service to replace a failed gyroscope.

NASA gives a nudge to the sleeping space & # 39; Scopes Chandra, Hubble out of the stupor caused by the gyroscope

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When the spacecraft is rotated to aim a part of the sky, the spin of the gyroscope measures the rotation rate of the mission controllers.

Hubble & # 39; s g Scientists at the mission put into operation a spare drive – but at power up, the backup gyroscope turned too fast.

To solve the problem, NASA proceeded with "reboots in progress" on the gyroscope while making Hubble turn maneuvers (turn yes, pedants, "turn off and on again was a small simplification for a title, but it was not wrong). This erased "what was supposed to be a blockage between components inside the gyroscope that produced excessively high rate values," NASA wrote.

There will now be a long line of astronomers and physicists ready to catch up on Hubble missions. . But that's not all good news.

On Monday, NASA warned the Kepler Space Telescope, discoverer of hundreds of exoplanets. The problem is that the telescope is almost out of gas and there is no way to recharge the tanks. ®