JAXA

First German commander among astronauts named for station flights

May 18, 2016 Stephen Clark

International Space Station managers have named crew members to future expeditions to the research lab in 2017 and 2018, including the first German commander of a space mission and Canada’s third astronaut to fly a long-duration residency on the complex.

Japanese orbiter officially begins science mission at Venus

May 17, 2016 Stephen Clark

Five months since a belated arrival at Venus, Japan’s Akatsuki spacecraft has officially started a modified scientific survey of the sweltering, shrouded planet’s atmosphere and climate.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.