Russian space telescope not responding to Earth’s commandJanuary 13, 16:22 updated at: January 13, 17:44 UTC+3The effort to establish contact with Spektr-R will continue after 7 p.m. on MondayMOSCOW, January 13. /TASS/. Russia’s Spektr-R space radio telescope failed to respond to commands from the Earth on Sunday and the attempts to restore control of it will continue on Monday afternoon, Adviser on Science to Roscosmos State Space Corporation’s Director General Alexander Bloshenko told TASS."Today’s program of an effort to try to contact with the spacecraft has ended. Now a meeting of the operational and technical leadership is underway on the outcome," Bloshenko said.The effort to establish contact with Spektr-R will continue after 7 p.m. on Monday when it will be seen by both earth stations, Medvezhji Ozera and Ussuriysk. "We are planning to repeat today’s program of work," he said.Spektr-R was launched in 2011 and the warranty period of its active operation expired back in 2014. Before this year, the radio telescope continued tackling targeted tasks, Roscosmos said.According to Alexander Bloshenko, a scientific advisor to the head of Russia’s space corporation Roscosmos, the telescope’s active operations lasted 2.5 times longer than expected.CEO of Russia’s state space corporation Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin has asked to speed up analysis of data from the Spektr-R space radio telescope ahead of the launch of the Spektr-RG observatory that is to replace the Radioastron project satellite in April, Bloshenko told."Rogozin has demanded focus be made on the preparations form the April launch of the Spektr-RG that is to replace the Spektr-R, which has outlives its lifespan by 2.5 times. In particular, the corporation’s director general has asked the Russian Academy of Sciences to speed up the analysis of data received from the current orbiter," he said.Roscosmos told TASS earlier that Sunday’s attempt to regain control of the old Spektr-R satellite had failed. More attempts will be made on Monday.The Gazeta.ru internet portal said on Friday evening, citing the Radioastron project head and corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Yuri Kovalev, that there are problems with the Spektr-R spacecraft. Nikolai Kardashev, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and director of the Astrospace Center (the Radiosastron project contractor), told TASS that there are problems with the satellite’s control although a signal from it is received.The Spektr-R was launched in 2011 and the warranty period of its active operation expired back in 2014. Before this year, the radio telescope continued tackling targeted tasks, Roscosmos said.
So what's the update here? Is there still hope left or is Spectr-R dead for good?
NRAO @TheNRAODosvedanya and Farewell, RadioAstron.#greenbankobservatoryhttps://public.nrao.edu/news/2019-radioastron-end/#PRimage1 …
Dosvedanya and Farewell, RadioAstronOn May 30, 2019, the Russian RadioAstron satellite — the farthest element of an Earth-to-space radio-telescope system — ended its service. During its mission, RadioAstron helped to capture some of astronomy’s highest-resolution images and studied the extreme physics of astronomical objects by working with telescopes around the world, including the National Science Foundation’s Green Bank Telescope in Green Bank, W.Va.Launched in July 2011, RadioAstron used the 43 Meter (140 Foot) Telescope at the Green Bank Observatory as one of only two sites to download data for the Russian-made satellite.RadioAstron excited the international scientific community for the unique science it enabled. Its high resolution was achieved through a technique known as “Very Long Baseline Interferometry,” which linked various radio antennas on Earth with the orbiting RadioAstron satellite to create a single, virtual telescope that extended into space.RadioAstron’s achievements included observing a black hole’s jet in the center of the giant galaxy NGC 1275 (also known as radio source Perseus A, or 3C 84) revealing the jet structure 10 times closer to the black hole than previously known; the discovery of galactic water masers as small as the Sun, the smallest maser sources ever observed; and the detection of low frequency interference fringes on long baselines, giving a new understanding of the ionized interstellar medium.The RadioAstron project was led by the Astro Space Center of the Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Lavochkin Scientific and Production Association under a contract with the Russian Federal Space Agency, in collaboration with partner organizations in Russia and other countries. The Green Bank Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation, operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.When RadioAstron was launched and up to October 2016, the telescopes at Green Bank were part of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, which signed the initial contract to collaborate on this mission. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation, operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.
