Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
NASA continues to investigate the reason why instruments in the Hubble Space Telescope went into safe mode, suspending science operations. While the mission team investigates, instruments remain in safe mode and are otherwise healthy.
Hubble's science instruments gave error codes at 1:46 AM EDT Oct. 23 to indicate the loss of a particular synchronization message. This message contains timing information that the instruments use in order to respond to data requests or commands. The instruments were reset by the mission team, and science operations resumed the next morning.
At 2:38 AM EDT on Oct. 25, science instruments issued error codes again indicating multiple lost synchronization messages. The science instruments entered as programmed safe mode states.
To better understand the problem of synchronization and to find solutions, mission team members are reviewing spacecraft data and system diagrams. They are also developing and testing methods to collect additional data from spacecraft. These activities will take approximately one week.
The spacecraft's rest is performing as expected.
Continue exploring the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Camera 3 restoration
