MOSCOW, January 16. /TASS/. Specialists will try once again to regain control over Spektr-R radio telescope on January 21 when the distance to the apparatus will be minimal, science advisor to the Roscosmos's chief Alexander Bloshenko told TASS on Wednesday.
"The next step is to repeat today's program on Monday when the distance to the spacecraft will be minimal. The distance currently stands at around 300,000 km," Bloshenko said.
He noted that on Wednesday, specialists from NPO Lavochkin and Russian Space Systems tried to regain control over the radio telescope from the Medvezhyi Ozera station. "Unfortunately, the result was negative," Bloshenko said.
Attempts made on Monday and Tuesday were also unsuccessful.
On January 11, problems with Spektr-R on January 11 were reported by the media. Russian Academy of Sciences member and chief of the Astrospace Center of the Lebedev Physics Institute (RadioAstron project client) Nikolai Kardashov told TASS that the signal from the space apparatus continued to be received but there were problems with controlling the satellite. Roscosmos later told the media that space satellites control group specialists were trying to eliminate the satellite’s glitches. Also, the space corporation recalled that the radio telescope Spektr-R had exceeded its expected life cycle by 2.5 times.