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It鈥檚 an astronomical tragedy. A software glitch is being blamed for the premature death of Japan鈥檚 X-ray space telescope Hitomi, just two-and-a-half months after its launch.
Emerging evidence suggests that an internal system error was responsible for sending the satellite into a wild spin, dislodging the two solar panels that powered the craft, .
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The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) that it would abandon any further attempts to restore the $286 million X-ray astronomy satellite, which left Earth on 17 February but failed to establish contact on 26 March.
鈥淲e have concluded from a range of information that we cannot restore the satellite鈥檚 functionality,鈥� .
After contact was initially lost with the satellite, three short bleeps detected on Earth offered a glimmer of hope that it was still intact. However, further investigations revealed that these signals were the , JAXA says.
Software error
The agency thinks a on 26 March led the satellite to believe it was rotating, even though it was motionless. In response, Hitomi applied a rotational force in the opposite direction, which resulted in faster and faster spinning.
Although the satellite was designed to switch to safe mode if this happened, a wrong command that had been uploaded made the spinning worse.
Telescopes on the ground have since spotted , which are presumed to be the solar panels that ripped away from the satellite as it spun out of control.
JAXA says it will now review the design, manufacturing, operations and verification of the satellite and its software systems, but won鈥檛 have the means to launch a replacement for 12 years.
Hitomi鈥檚 X-ray vision was intended to shed light on black holes, supernova remnants and galaxy clusters, says of Australian National University in Canberra. 鈥淭he failure of Hitomi is a significant loss to the community.鈥�
of Western Sydney University shares his disappointment. 鈥淭his is a big blow for X-ray astronomy,鈥� he says. 鈥淗itomi was meant to replace the present very ageing generation of X-ray satellites, so to say we are devastated would be an understatement.鈥�
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