July 25, 2025
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  • [ July 24, 2025 ] Amazon says $139.5 million investment in Florida is key to ramping up launch cadence with Project Kuiper Mission Reports
  • [ July 23, 2025 ] NASA probes to study how the solar wind triggers potentially dangerous ‘space weather’ Falcon 9
  • [ July 22, 2025 ] FAA: ‘Regional power outage’ causes last-minute scrub of NASA’s TRACERS mission Falcon 9
  • [ July 21, 2025 ] SpaceX launches 15th mission for SES following one-day scrub Falcon 9
  • [ July 18, 2025 ] SpaceX launches 24 Starlink satellites into polar orbit on Falcon 9 rocket from California Falcon 9

Astro-H

Mission Reports

Japan’s Hitomi observatory made cosmic discovery before failing

July 7, 2016 Stephen Clark

Japan’s doomed Hitomi observatory peeled back a veil on the inner workings of the Perseus cluster of galaxies before the satellite spun out of control earlier this year, revealing in unprecedented detail how gas heated to millions of degrees behaves around an unseen supermassive black hole, scientists said Wednesday.

News

Japan gives up on rescuing black hole observatory

April 29, 2016 Stephen Clark

Japan’s space agency says it has ceased efforts to rescue a failed X-ray astronomy satellite after it spun out of control and broke apart in orbit, declaring the nearly $400 million mission lost two months after its launch.

News

Attitude control failures led to break-up of Japanese astronomy satellite

April 18, 2016 Stephen Clark

Japan’s Hitomi X-ray observatory, beset by an attitude control problem that has disrupted communications since March 29, may have shed one of its power-generating solar panels or deployable telescope in orbit and is spinning too fast to contact ground controllers, officials said.

News

U.S. military rules out collision as cause of Hitomi satellite’s woes

March 29, 2016 Stephen Clark

As Japanese ground controllers struggle to restore communications with a tumbling space telescope in orbit, the U.S. military’s space surveillance experts have eliminated one cause for the satellite’s troubles.

News

Japan’s newest space telescope goes silent

March 27, 2016 Stephen Clark

Japan has lost contact with the newly-launched Hitomi space telescope, and ground observations indicate the satellite has shed debris and may be tumbling in orbit more than 350 miles above Earth.

H-2A

Photos: H-2A rocket soars on groundbreaking astronomy mission

February 19, 2016 Stephen Clark

Burning a mixture of super-cold liquid hydrogen, liquid oxygen and pre-packed solid propellant, Japan’s H-2A rocket vaulted into a deep blue evening sky over the beaches of Tanegashima Island on Wednesday with a satellite that will see the surroundings of black holes better than ever before.

H-2A

Black hole observatory launched from Japan

February 17, 2016 Stephen Clark

Japan launched a pioneering observatory with X-ray vision Wednesday to peer into the mysterious, light-starved neighborhoods around black holes and study the genesis of galaxies and other cosmic mega-structures billions of light-years from Earth.

H-2A

Live coverage: H-2A rocket delivers on 30th flight

February 16, 2016 Stephen Clark

Japan’s Astro-H mission, an X-ray astronomy observatory designed to shed light on black holes and the unseen structure of the universe, lifted off aboard an H-2A rocket from the Tanegashima Space Center at 0845 GMT (3:45 a.m. EST) Wednesday.

H-2A

Launch of Japanese X-ray observatory postponed

February 11, 2016 Stephen Clark

The Japanese space agency said Thursday the launch of an X-ray astrophysics observatory is postponed from Friday due to a poor weather forecast at the Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan.

News Headlines

  • Amazon says $139.5 million investment in Florida is key to ramping up launch cadence with Project Kuiper
    July 24, 2025
  • NASA probes to study how the solar wind triggers potentially dangerous ‘space weather’
    July 23, 2025
  • FAA: ‘Regional power outage’ causes last-minute scrub of NASA’s TRACERS mission
    July 22, 2025
  • SpaceX launches 15th mission for SES following one-day scrub
    July 21, 2025
  • SpaceX launches 24 Starlink satellites into polar orbit on Falcon 9 rocket from California
    July 18, 2025
  • SpaceX launches first of three missions for Amazon’s Project Kuiper constellation
    July 15, 2025
  • SpaceX launches 26 Starlink satellites on Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg SFB
    July 15, 2025
  • NASA, SpaceX target July 31 for Crew-11 launch to the ISS
    July 14, 2025
  • SpaceX launches Israeli satellite on a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral
    July 12, 2025
  • Axiom Space, Oakley partner on spacesuit visor for Artemis missions
    July 12, 2025
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