NASA Hubble Space Telescope Resumes Scientific Mission, But TESS' Exoplanet-Hunting in Limbo

NASA has finally restored the Hubble Space Telescope and has continued its scientific operations in deep space after it entered safe mode for a week.

However, the space agency is still uncertain about the exoplanet-hunting Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) as its operations remain paused.

What Happened to Hubble?

The iconic Hubble Space Telescope had to halt its scientific operations after suffering a glitch with one of its three gyroscopes. These components are crucial in determining how the telescope is orientated, so it has to enter safe mode.

NASA noted at the time when it was paused that the telescope remained in good health and that most of its instruments were stable. However, the gyroscope issue was still serious enough to prompt the telescope from conducting its regular scientific programming.

The space agency noted that one of Hubble's gyroscopes delivered faulty readings, which are vital for estimating the telescope's turn rates and orientation.

These components have significantly dwindled over the years since they were installed on the fifth and final space shuttle servicing mission in 2009. Six were initially launched, but as of this writing, they are now down to three.

However, these three gyros remain helpful in Hubble's operations. In fact, NASA said that they can still maximize efficiency and the telescope can still operate as usual with only one gyro if needed.

On April 30, these worries were finally put to rest as the space agency happily announced that the iconic telescope was back in action.

"On April 30, 2024, NASA announced it restored the agency's Hubble Space Telescope to science operations on April 29. The spacecraft is in good health and once again operating using all three of its gyros. All of Hubble's instruments are online, and the spacecraft has resumed taking science observations," NASA said in its recent update.

What's Next for TESS?

The exoplanet hunter halted its operations on April 23, which was also the same day that Hubble entered safe mode. However, unlike Hubble, its condition remains uncertain.

NASA declared that the TESS team is still looking into what caused the outage and trying to figure out how to get TESS back up and running.

In addition, NASA is still investigating what caused a different safe mode incident that shut down the exoplanet seeker earlier in the month.

After experiencing an issue on April 17, TESS went offline on April 8 and restarted operations. However, six days later, it went back into safe mode. According to the space agency, the goal of the investigation is to determine whether these two occurrences are related.

NASA's TESS went into safe mode on April 23 during normal activity, temporarily halting science operations.