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Artist's illustration of NASA's Chandra X-ray observatory in Earth orbit. Chandra resumed his scientific activities on October 21, 2018, 11 days after launching a gyroscope that put the telescope in "secure" mode.
Credit: NASA
NASA's Chandra X-ray observatory has recovered from the outage that had put it offline two weeks ago.
This problem was caused by an orientation gyroscope, whose misplaced behavior caused the venerable space telescope to enter a "secure mode" of protection on October 10th. But members of the mission team were able to establish a new gyroscope configuration. Chandra has resumed his scientific operations. Sunday night (October 21st), NASA officials said.
"The team initiated a series of maneuvers to change the direction and direction of the probe to confirm that the gyroscopes behaved as expected," agency officials wrote in a statement. mission update today (October 24th). [Our X-Ray Universe: Amazing Photos by NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory]
"In the coming week, scientists will collect satellite data to refine the performance of the new gyroscope configuration," they added. "Finally, the team will put uplink software patch to apply the necessary adjustments to the on-board computer."
Chandra has been studying the sky on X-ray since 1999, when it launched into Earth orbit aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia. The telescope has made many important discoveries over the years – helping astronomers observe the formation of gigantic clusters of galaxies, for example, and mapping the distribution of mysterious dark matter in the cosmos.
Chandra is one of four spacecraft launched between 1990 and 2003 as part of NASA's "Great Observatories" program, with the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes and the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory (CGRO).
A gyroscope failure ended CGRO's mission after nine years in 2000, and an unstable gyroscope has just disturbed Hubble, although the famous telescope is expected to recover soon. Spitzer, like Hubble, remains active today.
Shortly after Chandra reopened, another NASA telescope fell asleep. The Kepler probe, which has discovered about 70 percent of the world's 3,800 known planets, has gone into "fuel-free" standby mode, NASA officials said yesterday (Oct. 23).
This is not a big surprise. Kepler has been running out of fuel for months and the telescope manipulators have insisted that the end approaches.
Mike Wall's book on the quest for extraterrestrial life, "Out There," will be published on November 13 by Grand Central Publishing. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. follow us @Spacedotcom or Facebook. Originally posted on Space.com.
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