Webb’s telescope – one of the instruments has a malfunction. NASA publishes a statement
The James Webb Telescope suffers its second major failure during its space mission. After problems with the MIRI instrument that began in August and were finally resolved, this time the NIRISS (Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph) scanner is in trouble. In a statement published by NASA, we read that the said element of the observatory is experiencing a communication delay, which translates into interruptions in the operation of the software responsible for the flight.
However, the agency emphasizes that this failure does not pose a threat to the equipment itself, and the other JWST instruments are in very good condition. NASA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) are currently working together to determine and correct the root cause of the communication delay at NIRISS. The near-infrared scanner is thus necessarily excluded from scientific observation at the moment; all of those planned in the period until the failure is removed will be postponed.
Under normal conditions, NIRISS operates in four different modes. It can act as a camera while other instruments perform other tasks; can analyze light signatures to determine the composition of exoplanet atmospheres; is responsible for high-contrast imaging or uses one of the modes designed to search for distant galaxies.
It is worth noting that the news of the NIRISS failure comes to us exactly one year after the Webb Telescope reached its destination – the L2 libration point.
