The wait for NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to be fully functional is over. According to a new update from the agency, it has been fixed entirely and will be delivering the objectives as intended.
It has four total scientific instruments and now all of them are working fine. There was a software glitch experienced in the instruments last month that obstructed its smooth operations. Scientists worked hard on it to make sure that it is back to work again without any compromised instruments as it is one of the most important space observational tools in history.
The timing has naturally synched with NASA’s launch of its James Webb Space Telescope. This new telescope will soon be launched in a few weeks. Both telescopes will “work together well into this decade, expanding our knowledge of the cosmos even further,” as NASA wrote in today’s update.
In October, the Hubble Space Telescope had gone through some hiccups. There were synchronization problems in the commands that the telescope was receiving from the earth. These issues were not resolved, despite the relentless efforts of engineers in early November.
From mid to late November, scientists managed to bring scientific instruments back online one by one by pushing several changes to the software.
“The team will continue work on developing and testing changes to instrument software that would allow them to conduct science operations even if they encounter several lost synchronization messages in the future,” today’s update reads.
The Hubble Space Telescope is said to be aging and all these problems are occurring because it has been out in space for 31 years which is a long time. Still, after the fixes, it seems to work just fine even though the last time it underwent a physical service was 12 years ago.