NASA restores much-used instrument from Hubble telescope

NASA managed to reactivate Wide Field Camera 3 on Sunday. It is the second component the space agency has been able to activate since the space telescope went into safe mode on October 25.

NASA writes that it has managed to reactivate the Wide Field Camera 3. According to NASA, this camera is the most used of all instruments on board the Hubble telescope. The team working on the space telescope has already succeeded in getting the Advanced Camera for Surveys operational.

The telescope from 1990 is outdated and earlier this year had problems that caused research to come to a standstill. Then engineers at NASA managed to get the telescope operational again remotely. Since the end of October, the telescope has been back in safe mode and no research can be done.

The next component that NASA will focus on is the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph. The team expects it to take several weeks to test and upload the intended changes to this instrument. The rest of the instruments on board the Hubble telescope will remain in safe mode for the time being.

The Hubble telescope is well past its lifespan. The successor to the Hubble telescope is currently being prepared to go into space. The James Webb telescope was due to launch on December 18 from a base in French Guiana, but the launch has been postponed again to December 22.