2023 Author: Bryan Walter | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-21 22:24
The launch of the Russian space observatory Spektr-RG, which was scheduled for today, has been postponed to July 12, due to a malfunction associated with the device's battery. As the correspondent of N + 1 reports, this was announced at Baikonur by the deputy general director of Roscosmos Mikhail Khailov.
The Spektr-RG spacecraft was created at the Lavochkin Scientific and Production Association. It has two X-ray telescopes: eRosita, created at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics and ART-XC, developed by the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences and manufactured by the All-Russian Research Institute of Experimental Physics (VNIIEF) in Sarov.
According to him, the launch has been postponed to July 12, the reserve day is July 13. The start was postponed "due to a failure in the cyclogram of connecting a primary (disposable) chemical current source," the problem was discovered "during a set of launch readiness," Khailov said. The postponement of the launch for such a long period means, in particular, that the Proton-M launch vehicle with the space telescope will need to be taken away from the launch site, the fuel should be drained, and then all the technological operations to prepare for the launch will have to be repeated.
About what objects the device will be able to discern, what new it will be able to learn about the X-ray Universe, read our material “We will conduct a total census”.
