(ORDO NEWS) — The James Webb Space Telescope has a new problem. The NIRISS device is out of order. NIRISS (Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph) includes a camera and a slitless spectrograph.
The instrument operates in the near and mid-infrared wavelength ranges. NIRISS also conducts exoplanet atmosphere spectroscopy.
It has been offline since Sunday, January 15 due to a communication error. An internal communication error caused the software to time out.
There is no indication that the instrument has been damaged in any way. The rest of the devices are working fine.
The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) built NIRISS as a contribution to the James Webb mission.
It has also incorporated a Fine Guidance Sensor (FGS) that is physically integrated with NIRISS but is a separate instrument.
It’s unclear when the tool will be up and running again, but that’s bad news for onlookers. Webb has a very tight schedule, and it’s unclear how this delay will affect observations.
This is not the first difficulty that the telescope had to face.
In December, he went into safe mode for about three weeks due to a software glitch in his attitude control system. The MIRI (mid-infrared instrument) instrument also briefly failed.
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