Another NASA Space Telescope Has Gone Into “Safe Mode”

It’s been a big week for NASA. First the much-loved Hubble Space Telescope entered “safe mode” after one of the gyroscopes that points it in the right direction failed.

Then there was a mid-flight failure of a Russian Soyuz rocket on Thursday morning, resulting in the (safe!) emergency landing of cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin and astronaut Nick Hague – something that’s left the space organisation without a way to get people into space, and the crew of the ISS “marooned”

Now the Chandra X-ray Observatory is having issues.

The observatory, which has been showing us the Universe in incredible detail since 1999, entered “safe mode” on Wednesday October 10, NASA announced in a press release.

“Safe mode” is basically a protective configuration that keeps the telescope stable until ground control can work out what’s going on and get the mission back on track.

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