Updated November 18th, 2021 at 18:13 IST

NASA extends Hubble operations support contract till 2026; awards $215 million to AURA

NASA has awarded AURA a $215 million contract extension to retain the services of STScI for supporting the Hubble telescope programme.

Reported by: Harsh Vardhan
Image: Twitter/@NASAHubble | Image:self
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While scientists continue to work towards resolving Hubble Space Telescope's technical issues, NASA has extended the telescope's operations contract till June 2026. The agency awarded the contract extension worth $215 million to the Washington-based Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) for the continuous support of science operations from the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI). According to a Phys.Org report, NASA revealed that this new sum for contract extension has taken the existing value of the contract to $2.4 billion. 

Now that NASA will retain the services of STScI for supporting the Hubble programme, the latter will assist the former with science system engineering and the products and services required, development of the ground system, management of science research awards and public outreach support and data archive support for mission data. Currently, NASA engineers are investigating a technical error in the telescope which made a few instruments enter the safe mode configuration in late October. Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s science mission directorate was quoted saying as per Phys.Org,

Mission specialists are working hard to figure out how to bring the other instruments back to full operation. We expect the spacecraft to have many more years of science ahead, and work in tandem with the James Webb Space Telescope, launching later this year. 

Investigations are underway to resolve Hubble's glitch

Last week, NASA provided an update of Hubble's functioning and the attempts being made to revive the telescope. It had revealed that the Hubble team successfully revived one of the telescope’s instruments but the investigations to find the root cause of the technical failure are still underway. The engineers have recovered the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) instrument and are currently trying to recover Wide Field Camera 3. In a Twitter update by NASA's Hubble team on Tuesday, it wrote, "Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys has continued collecting science data as @NASA works to address the anomaly related to missing synchronization messages. The team is currently working to recover Wide Field Camera 3 to operational status next week".

The malfunction in Hubble was first identified on October 23, following which it went into safe mode integration. It reportedly suffered a glitch that resulted in the loss of specific synchronization messages that the telescope's instruments use to respond to data requests and commands correctly.

Image: Twitter/@NASAHubble

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Published November 18th, 2021 at 18:13 IST