One of the James Webb Space Telescope's most important instruments had been offline for months — but it's now been brought back to full functionality.
on board — offline upon discovering the issue. Weeks of remote investigations ensued, and finally, the Webb team determined that MIRI's wheel's problem was caused by "increased contact forces between the wheel central bearing assembly’s sub-components under certain conditions."
In English, that means there was too much friction between the wheel and its grate, which was in turn screwing with the camera. The Webb team went ahead and assigned some new operational rules for the instrument while it was being remotely worked on, and on November 2, NASA enacted those rules so that it could finally bring the camera back online after more than two months of it being shut off.
For its next move, the STScI notes, MIRI will be "taking advantage of a unique opportunity to observe Saturn’s polar regions" — not bad for an instrument that spent two months on the bench.
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