Japanese satellite gets lost in space
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency spokeswoman Izumi Yoshizaki said efforts to restore communication links since the problem began on Saturday had been unsuccessful and it was investigating what might have happened to the Hitomi satellite, launched February 17.
“We are really doing our best,” she said.
She said the agency was looking into a statement from the Joint Space Operations Center, the US military organisation that tracks objects in space, that Hitomi may have splintered into several pieces.
Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics, said he suspected the satellite had suffered an “energetic event”, possibly a gas leak or a battery explosion, that sent it tumbling end-over-end.
That would mean its antenna was not pointing where it needed to, which is why the satellite cannot communicate.
“Everyone’s gutted,” said Mr McDowell, who works with another hi-tech space X-ray telescope, Chandra.
“To hear that they’ve run into this piece of bad luck, it’s so very sad. Space is very unforgiving.”
