In Japan, lost communication with the satellite launched last month – REGNUM

Tokyo, March 28, 2016, 00:47 – REGNUM Japan Aerospace Exploration agency (JAXA) has lost communication with the recently launched satellite “hit”. With installed on the spacecraft of the latest telescopes, including X-ray, Japanese researchers plan to make significant progress in the study of black holes, the final stage of development of supermassive stars. About what happened JAXA spokesman said on Sunday, March 27 reports Kyodo News.

spacecraft launched into orbit on February 17 from the territory of the space center in Kagoshima Prefecture in northwest Japan, stopped responding to signals of Japanese scientists has Saturday, 26 March. JAXA experts are trying to reconnect, but so far to rectify the situation failed

Satellite turned over the Earth in low orbit:. Its height is 580 km ( to compare the mean distance from the earth to its natural satellite of the moon is equal to 384 thousands of kilometers – approx IA Regnum ), but the Japanese space agency announced that the device can deviate from the normal trajectory

«We take this situation very seriously,” -.. told reporters Director Institute of space and Astronautical Science Saku Tsuneto. According to him, it is difficult to say whether it is possible to recover the lost with the satellite connection.

It is not clear what could have caused the incident. According to the version of the astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, possibly on the spacecraft was a kind of “energy event”, such as: a gas leak or battery failure. situation of danger is that the satellite in its current state can not deploy a solar battery and supplies its own energy may be depleted before JAXA experts, connecting, will be able to remedy the situation.

The satellite “Hitomi”, called «Astro-H», was developed by scientists at the Japan space agency, together with NASA experts. On board the spacecraft, which is a powerful space observatory, four X-ray telescope mounted and two gamma-ray detector, with which scientists planned to obtain new data on the final stage of the evolution of supermassive stars of black holes. Start monitoring unit was in the summer of 2016.

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