V*******n
发帖数: 1 | 1 卫星搭载俄国和德国的X射线望远镜，用来探测大质量黑洞和星系团的高能辐射。
MOSCOW (AP) — A Russian Proton-M rocket successfully delivered a cutting-
edge space telescope into orbit Saturday after days of launch delays, Russia
’s space agency said.
Roscosmos said the telescope, named Spektr-RG, was delivered into a parking
orbit before a final burn Saturday that kicked the spacecraft out of Earth’
s orbit and on to its final destination: the L2 Lagrange point.
Lagrange points are unique positions in the solar system where objects can
maintain their position relative to the sun and the planets that orbit it.
Located 1.5 million kilometers (0.93 million miles) from Earth, L2 is
particularly ideal for telescopes such as Spektr-RG.
If all goes well, the telescope will arrive at its designated position in
three months, becoming the first Russian spacecraft to operate beyond Earth
’s orbit since the Soviet era. The telescope aims to conduct a complete x-
ray survey of the sky by 2025, the first space telescope to do so.
The Russian accomplishment comes as the U.S. space agency NASA celebrates
the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing on July 20, 1969.
Russian space science missions have suffered greatly since the 1991 collapse
of the Soviet Union. Budget cuts have forced the Russian space program to
shift toward more commercial efforts.
A Russian Mars probe, called Mars 96, failed to leave Earth’s orbit in 1996
. A later attempt to send a probe to Mars, called Fobos-Grunt, suffered a
similar fate in 2011.
Work on Spektr-RG telescope began in the 1980s but was scrapped in the 1990s
. Spektr-RG was revived in 2005 and redesigned to be smaller, simpler and
cheaper.
In its modern form, the project is a close collaboration between Russian and
German scientists, who both installed telescope equipment aboard the
Russian spacecraft. | V*******n
发帖数: 1 | 2 媒体注意到发射时间正好是NASA50周年庆典，具有讽刺意义。 |
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