For the past 25 years, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Flagship of Chandra X-ray Observatory Supermassive black hole
As part of a telescope Anniversary celebration space
of Chandra The telescope first National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Space Shuttle Columbia Moon Exoplanets Dark Energy
“How much technology from 1999 is still in use today?” Chandra scientist Douglas Schwartz said in a recent NASA announcement. statement
Related: Happy 25th Anniversary of Chandra! NASA Celebrates with 25 Breathtaking Images from its Flagship X-ray Observatory
The mission, originally planned for five years but then extended to at least 10, still has 10 years of life left. That lasting value is no coincidence, according to the mission team, who automated parts of the observatory to increase efficiency. After Chandra’s budget was cut in 1992, the mission was dramatically restructured to eliminate scheduled maintenance and upgrades by astronauts, minimizing the impact on the science output. “There were plenty of excitements and challenges, but we rose to them and overcame them,” project engineer David Hood, who joined Chandra development in 1988, said in a statement.
The Chandra X-ray Observatory, the longest cargo ever carried into space on a Space Shuttle, is photographed in Columbia’s payload bay before being tilted upward for release and deployment on July 23, 1999. (Image courtesy of Space Frontiers/Archive Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
“High power X-ray field astronomy “Chandra was still relatively young, so it wasn’t enough to just build an innovative observatory,” Martin Weiskopf, who has led Chandra’s scientific development since the late 1970s, said in a statement. “We first needed to build the tools needed to test, analyze, and improve the hardware.”
Marshall renovated and expanded its X-ray calibration facility in Alabama to house Chandra’s instruments and test key hardware in a space-like environment, an effort that paved the way for Chandra’s testing a few years later. James Webb Space Telescope Hubble Space Telescope
In this 1997 photo, engineers at the X-ray Calibration Facility (now called the X-ray and Cryogenics Facility) at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama integrate Chandra’s high-resolution camera with the mirror assembly inside a 24-foot-diameter vacuum chamber. (Image courtesy of NASA)
The mission team is currently closely monitoring the telescope’s orbital position and the efficiency of its key instruments, including its external insulation, which is understandably deteriorating. time Scientists claim
“Chandra is still a workhorse, but it requires more gentle handling.” Marshall Space Flight Center
The iconic telescope’s 25th anniversary is bittersweet for many astronomers. They worry that the telescope will be prematurely closed because of budgetary crunch, which saw NASA’s proposed fiscal year 2025 budget released in March cut funding for Chandra by 40 percent, from $68.3 million in 2023 to $41.1 million next year, with further cuts after 2026, dropping to $5.2 million in 2029. The loss of the Chandra telescope is an “extinction-level” event for X-ray astronomy in the United States, and no other telescope can mimic or exceed Chandra’s capabilities. More than 100 astronomers continue to urge NASA to reconsider the decision through the Save Chandra coalition, arguing that the observatory’s operating costs have been stable for the past few decades and that it still has another decade to run.
Yesterday (July 23rd), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) A committee looking at ways to reduce Chandra’s operating costs concluded that there was no way to continue operating the observatory with the reduced funding proposed by NASA, SpaceNews reported. report
NASA is currently evaluating these options and expects to announce its plans for the Chandra transition in mid-September.
