2023 Author: Bryan Walter | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-21 22:24
The Radioastron space telescope has been officially declared lost - the decision to complete the mission was made by the State Commission for Flight Testing of the Spektr-R spacecraft on which the radio telescope is installed, Roscosmos reports.
In early January, the specialists failed to conduct a regular communication session with Radioastron. However, they found that the scientific equipment of the telescope is still synchronized with the signal from ground stations. In February, the state commission decided to continue trying to contact the telescope and receive telemetry from it. These attempts have now been abandoned.
Radioastron is a complex of a network of ground-based radio telescopes and a space radio telescope. The orbiter with a 10 meter antenna is the largest space radio telescope in history. The main scientific task of the apparatus is to conduct interferometric observations of active galactic nuclei, pulsars, quasars and interstellar gas clouds. The telescope was launched into orbit in 2011 and has successfully completed its original mission of five years.
A new Russian space telescope, Spektr-RG, is expected to be launched at the end of June, which will operate in the gamma and X-ray ranges.
Read about the scientific results obtained by "Radioastron" in our material "To Catch a Lizard's Tail".
