Spektr-RG space telescope completes main research program - Russian Academy of Sciences' institute
MOSCOW. Jan 13 (Interfax) - The Spektr-RG space observatory has completed its research program and will continue to explore the universe in the X-ray range, the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) said in a statement.
"The observatory has successfully completed the research program planned for this period and continues to study the universe in the hard X-ray range," the statement said.
The telescope has completed its 6.5-year warranty period, it said.
From October 2023 to the end of December 2025, the telescope surveyed the entire sky and made eight full scans, the analysis of which will be used to publish a new catalogue, the statement said.
Two preliminary catalogues of hard X-ray radiation were published in the first year of the observatory's work and following its operation in 2019-2022, it said. "The latest included over 1,500 sources, about 10% of them previously unknown," the statement said.
A preliminary catalogue of the deep survey of the galactic plane which includes almost 2,200 sources is underway - accreting neutron stars, black holes, white dwarfs, and coronally active stars, it said.
"The ART-XC telescope's observations are expected to add hundreds of new objects to our knowledge of our own galaxy, the nature of which remains to be determined. Specifically, more than 170 sources have been discovered in a small region of the galaxy's center alone, a third of which were previously unknown," the statement said.
Russian Space Systems said its specialists had obtained over two terabytes of scientific and telemetry data over six years of the observatory's operation.
Space Research Institute Director Anatoly Petrukovich told Interfax on November 14, 2024 that the Spektr-RG astrophysical observatory could keep working after the warranty expired and it had enough fuel to last for several years.
Spektr-RG was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on July 13, 2018. It was built in collaboration with Germany as part of the Russian federal space program on orders from the Russian Academy of Sciences. The observatory is equipped with two X-ray telescopes: ART-XC (made by the RAS Space Research Institute, Russia) and eROSITA (MPE, Germany), which operate using oblique-incidence X-ray optics. The telescopes are mounted on the Navigator space platform (NPO Lavochkin, Russia), adapted for the project's purposes.
The primary goal of the mission is to map the entire sky in the soft and hard X-ray ranges with unprecedented sensitivity.
The German Space Agency informed Roscosmos on February 26, 2022, that it planned to shut down its telescope on Russia's Spektr-RG space observatory. RAS Space Research Institute Academic Director, RAS member Lev Zelyony told Interfax that Russian specialists are unable to operate the German telescope.
