The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency pieced together a rough timeline of the events sending the agency’s Hitomi spacecraft into an uncontrolled tumble, causing the spacecraft to break up.
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Cautious optimism turned to outright pessimism in the last days after new data and observation reports emerged for Japan’s Hitomi X-Ray Observatory following its serious on-board anomaly last Saturday.
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A small glimmer of hope emerged in the ongoing troubles of Japan’s Hitomi mission when the spacecraft briefly sent signals to the ground, confirming that there still is some life in the 2,700-Kilogram space observatory.
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Japan’s Hitomi space observatory, launched back in February, suffered a serious in-flight anomaly on Saturday.
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Japan’s Hitomi Space Observatory has taken its first steps in orbit, deploying an extendable optical bench to be able to deliver the best spectral data ever achieved in the high-energy X-ray range
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Japan’s H-IIA rocket blasted of from its sea-side launch pad on Tanegashima Space Center on Wednesday, lifting into orbit the Astro-H observatory, set to deliver the highest resolution in high-energy X-Ray spectra to probe the most extreme environments found in the universe.
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Japan’s H-IIA rocket blasted of from its sea-side launch pad on Tanegashima Space Center on Wednesday, lifting into orbit the Astro-H observatory, set to deliver the highest resolution in high-energy X-Ray spectra to probe the most extreme environments found in the universe.
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Japan’s new flagship space observatory was lifted into orbit on Wednesday by an H-IIA rocket, embarking on a mission to observe the most extreme environments in the universe.
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A Japanese H-IIA Rocket is rolled to its sea-side launch pad at the Tanegashima Space Center to lift the Astro-H X-ray observatory in orbit to deliver unprecedented detail on the most extreme environments in the universe.
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Japan’s Astro-H X-Ray Observatory is set for liftoff atop an H-IIA rocket on Wednesday after several days of weather-related delays.
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The year 2015 saw 87 orbital launch attempts from spaceports across the globe – 84 missions reached orbit in a year that saw 82 successful orbital launches. Here are photos of all of 2015’s space launches.
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The year 2015 saw a total of 87 known orbital launch attempts operated by seven nations from space ports in eight countries.
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The Soyuz TMA-17M crew of Oleg Kononenko, Kimiya Yui and Kjell Lindgren made a safe landing in Kazakhstan on Friday after a space flight of four and a half months. It marked the fifth nighttime landing of a Soyuz returning from ISS, but the first to take place after sunset instead of the early morning hours.
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Three International Space Station crew members made a safe return to Earth on Friday, coming in for a parachute-assisted landing
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A trio of Soyuz crew members parachuted down to a safe landing in the dark of night on Friday, returning from a 142-day mission to the International Space Station. Making a rare nighttime landing and the first post-sunset touchdown in ISS history, Soyuz commander Oleg Kononenko and Flight Engineers Kimiya Yui and Kjell Lindgren returned safely
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The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency announced earlier this week that the agency’s Akatsuki Venus Orbiter successfully completed its last-chance orbital insertion maneuver and was tracked close to the expected orbit around Venus, saving a mission that had been feared lost after the spacecraft had missed its first opportunity of entering orbit around Earth’s neighbor planet.
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Three International Space Station residents departed the orbiting complex on Friday to start their return journey towards a rare nighttime landing of the Soyuz spacecraft on the steppe of Kazakhstan.
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