Webb telescope fully resumes science operations after software glitch

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has fully resumed science operations after its instruments intermittently went into safe mode beginning December 7 due to a software fault triggered in the attitude control system, which controls the pointing of the observatory, the agency said on Wednesday.

This fault resulted in several pauses to Webb's science operations totaling a few days over that time period. Science proceeded otherwise during that time.

"During a safe mode, the observatory's nonessential systems are automatically turned off, placing it in a protected state until the problem can be fixed," NASA explained.

According to the agency, the observatory and its instruments are all in good health and were not in any danger while the observatory's onboard fault management system worked as expected to keep the hardware safe. The mission team is working to reschedule observations affected by this event.

Webb, an international partnership between NASA, ESA (the European Space Agency) and CSA (the Canadian Space Agency), is the world's largest and most powerful space science telescope ever built. The premium observatory is designed to study every phase of the 13.5 billion years of cosmic history - from within our solar system to the most distant observable galaxies in the early universe and everything in between.