The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has a Great Observatories program that has launched four telescopes into space. One of them is called Spitzer. It was taken offline a few years ago, but may be back up and running soon.
What is known
Spitzer is behind the Sun. In this regard, scientists from NASA lost contact with him. Due to the inability to resume communications in 2020, the space agency decided to turn off the observatory. Now it is twice as far from the Sun as our planet.
Rhea Space Activity will help bring the telescope back to life. It will develop a 1 x 1 meter satellite that will head towards Spitzer and be used as a repeater.
The US Space Force provided a $250,000 grant to develop the spacecraft. It is expected that he will go to the telescope in 2020. Along the way, the satellite will investigate solar flares, and upon arrival, it will assess the state of Spitzer.
In conclusion, we add that Spitzer is the newest telescope of the four “Great Observatories”. It was launched in 2003. Hubble was the first to go into space, in 1990, followed by Compton (1991) and Chandra (1999). Compton was sunk in the Pacific Ocean in 2000 after one of their gyroscopes failed.
Source: arstechnica
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