Skip to footer

Japan's lost satellite is tumbling through space, but still checking in

Japan’s space agency says it has received a few bursts of communication with the innovative satellite Hitomi. JAXA is holding out hope for its X-ray satellite.

|
Kyodo News/AP/File
An H-2A rocket carrying an X-ray satellite called "Hitomi", is launched from the Tanegashima Space Center in Kagoshima Prefecture, southern Japan, On Feb. 17. Japan’s space agency says communication has failed with the innovative satellite on Saturday, but a new video suggests it is tumbling through space.

Japan's lost space equipment – the X-ray satellite Hitomi – may have tried to phone home, suggesting that the $265-million piece of space equipment might still have a chance to complete its mission. 

Losing Hitomi would be a devastating blow for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), as the agency has already lost two other satellites, which broke before completing their missions. Fortunately for JAXA, promising video footage taken from Earth and sporadic bursts of static suggest that the satellite may still be functional, though perhaps tumbling through space.

"If the satellite were not tumbling, it would appear to be the same brightness," Paul Maley, a former NASA flight controller and amateur astronomer who has observed Hitomi, told National Geographic. "The fact that it is rotating with extreme variations in brightness indicates that it is not controlled and that some event caused it to begin its rotation."

JAXA received a burst of communication earlier this week, suggesting the satellite is damaged but not destroyed completely, Jeff Faust reported for SpaceNews. JAXA remains optimistic, and the president has set up a headquarters to investigate and recover Hitomi. 

"There’s hope for recovery unless the spacecraft is severely damaged," he said. "We haven’t given up recovery of the spacecraft."

Hitomi lost contact with Earth on Saturday, March 26, but JAXA had no clues as to what happened or why communication failed, according to a news release. The president set up emergency headquarters for JAXA to investigate and recover the lost satellite. 

The US Space Command’s Joint Space Operations Center found evidence that Hitomi has broken into at least five pieces, but the satellite's owners hope that means the outer casing has broken off without damaging its frame or essential functions. Their case is bolstered by continuing communication.

Hitomi's mission is to study the universe's most high-energy objects, including black holes, galaxy clusters, and exploding stars, a mission JAXA still hopes it can complete. 

"The recovery will require months, not days," Masaki Fujimoto, a director of international strategy and coordination at JAXA told Space News. "That’s the kind of timescale we have in mind."

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Japan's lost satellite is tumbling through space, but still checking in
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2016/0331/Japan-s-lost-satellite-is-tumbling-through-space-but-still-checking-in
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe