Whew

Contact has been re-established with XMM-Newton.

XMM-Newton talks again loud and clear

23 October 2008
XMM-Newton, ESA’s X-ray observatory, has re-established communication contact with Earth, showing that the spacecraft is safe and fully under control. The news was confirmed this morning by the mission control team at ESA’s European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany.

Radio contact was re-established on Wednesday 22 October around 18:00 Central European Summer Time (CEST). This followed an unexpected radio silence from the spacecraft which started on Saturday 18 October 2008 when XMM-Newton, coming out of a nominal period of non-radio visibility along its orbit around Earth, did not succeed in sending the expected signal to Earth.

Leave a comment