MOSCOW, February 25. /TASS/. A SPIN-Kh-1-MVN X-ray spectrometer installed outside the Russian Zvezda service module on the International Space Station (ISS) has begun to observe the celestial sphere under the All-Sky Monitor experiment, Russia’s State Space Corporation Roscosmos announced on Tuesday.
"The checks of the SPIN-Kh-1-MVN X-ray spectrometer installed outside the Zvezda service module were completed on the International Space Station in February 2025 under the All-Sky Monitor experiment and the equipment started observations," Roscosmos said in a statement.
The spectrometer for the All-Sky Monitor experiment was delivered to the space station by the Progress MS-28 resupply ship in August. In December, cosmonauts Ivan Vagner (a TASS special reporter in space) and Aleksey Ovchinin installed the instrument outside the Zvezda service module during extravehicular activity.
In September, Deputy Director of the Space Research Institute within the Russian Academy of Sciences Alexander Lutovinov told TASS that the instrument would begin its operation immediately after it was installed and would make 15 observations of the sky over three years. He further said that the device would help scientists determine the number of supermassive black holes in the Universe and their contribution to its history by gauging the cosmic X-ray background - the radiation made up of a large number of distant objects that actually cannot be viewed separately.