The Near-Infrared Camera and Multi-Objects Spectrograph on the Hubble has been resuscitated.
Damn, that means those 50 odd supplemental proposals are in the running as well as the almost three hundred WFPC2 proposals already in the queue...
"As of 1:20pm EST Tuesday 16 December 2008, the compressor on
the NICMOS Cooling System / NICMOS Cryo-cooler (NICMOS
NCS/NCC) was restarted and the system has since started
cooling successfully, with NICMOS expected to be operational
in a few weeks from now."
They let the pump warm to 10C, the blockage must indeed have been water ice and it is gone - cold trapped in a safer place.
Merry Christmas Hubble!
Now I feel dumb for only submitting a WFPC2 supplemental proposal. I had a good idea for NICMOS, but it just didn't get written in time...
Yessss, my last targets might actually be observed!
Here's hoping the two NIC proposals I'm on succeed.