Control over Russia's only space telescope lost

The connection with Russia's only space telescope, Spektr-R, is partially lost; the device isn't accepting commands from the Earth, Nikolai Kardashev, the head of the Astro Space Centre at the PN Lebedev Physics Institute told Sputnik.

"We're trying to fix the problem [...], there are different communications systems; some of them work, some do not work. We still receive some signals. Such failures have occurred earlier. It can return to normal," the scientist explained.

According to Nikolai Kardashev, scientists continue to receive data from the orbital telescope, despite its failure to respond to remote commands. Specialists from the company which build the device are working on restoring two-way communications.

Meanwhile, the head of the project told Sputnik that the Russian Spektr-R space telescope project will be terminated if control over the vehicle is not restored.

"If the satellite is not controlled, that will mean termination of the RadioAstron project," Yury Kovalev said.

He added that the next attempt to restore control over the space telescope would take place on Sunday.

Source: Sputnik News

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