In a move that sounds a lot like what many of us do when our gadgets freeze, NASA engineers recently had to give their space observatory, the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE), a quick reboot. This high-flying piece of technology, which orbits Earth, stopped sending back data on March 23, leaving scientists scratching their heads.
It wasn’t the first time IXPE decided to take an unexpected break. Something similar happened back in June 2023, but luckily, the team knew just what to do. By March 26, they followed a now-familiar procedure to restart the spacecraft’s brains, or avionics, to get it back on track. This smart move put IXPE in “safe mode,” a kind of tech time-out that helped ensure everything would run smoothly again.
NASA has now confirmed that IXPE is back to its old self, sending back valuable data from space. The team is eager to get back to their scientific missions, studying some of the universe’s most fascinating phenomena, like the remnants of exploded stars, neutron stars, and black holes, with renewed vigor.
Launched at the end of 2021, IXPE has a cool job. It’s out there to capture and study X-rays from various celestial bodies, helping scientists understand the universe’s most dramatic events. This mission marks NASA’s first attempt at examining the polarization of X-rays from space, offering new insights into the cosmos’ mysteries.
While the telescope was originally set to work for two years, its mission has been extended until September 2025. That means there’s still plenty of time for IXPE to uncover more secrets of the universe, as long as it doesn’t decide to go silent on us again. But if it does, NASA’s ready with the ctrl-alt-del.
