Hubble is such a workhorse, and it’s good to see tons of new images and science coming from the data collected. It’s also really good to read that the telescope team is continuing to bring Hubble back online from its safe mode at the end of October. On November 7,  the Advanced Camera for Surveys instrument was recovered. And now, we’re happy to report that Wide Field Camera 3 was brought online on November 21 and the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph was recovered on November 28. This means that three of Hubble’s four instruments are up and running, which is awesome news.

Per the latest update: The team also continued work on developing and testing changes to instrument software that would allow them to conduct science operations even if they encounter several lost synchronization messages in the future. Those changes would first be installed on the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph once they’re completed and tested within a few weeks. Hubble’s other instruments would also receive similar changes. The team has not detected further synchronization message issues since monitoring began Nov. 1.

Good luck and congratulations to the Hubble Space Telescope team on their tremendous efforts to keep the science going.

Meanwhile, over in the land of the telescope that shall not be renamed and the reason the Hubble Space Telescope team is working so hard to keep the aging craft up and running, JWST was back in the (bad) news recently. An “incident” occurred at the satellite preparation facility in French Guiana when a clamp band that is used to secure the very late and very expensive telescope to the launch vehicle adapter, well… the band had a “sudden, unplanned release”. And that release caused a vibration that went through the entire observatory.

A review board led by NASA was immediately formed to find out if anything was damaged in the incident, and engineering teams completed their testing on November 24. And in stunningly good news which we are not going to look at too closely, “no observatory components were damaged”, NASA gave their approval to begin fueling, and the launch date was moved to no earlier than December 22, a delay of a mere four days.

We remind you, as always, do not count your telescopes until they see first light. Here’s hoping we head into our holiday break with news of the actual launch.

More Information

NASA Takes Another Step Toward Full Hubble Ops: Spectrograph Returns (NASA)

Testing Confirms Webb Telescope on Track for Targeted Dec. 22 Launch (NASA)

NASA Provides Update on Webb Telescope Launch (NASA)