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Russia Launches Delayed Radiotelescope
An anonymous reader writes "Yesterday the Radioastron Spektr-R satellite was successfully launched from Baikonur cosmodrome. It became first launch of an astronomical satellite in 25 years for Russia. Its mission is to search the Universe for black holes, quasars, pulsars, and other mysterious objects. Using a highly elliptical orbit of around 340,000 km it will conduct interferometer observations (in conjunction with the global ground radio telescope network) with the extraordinarily high angular resolution. The project's life expectancy is 5 years but its creators are hoping for it to work at least twice as long."
Spy satellite turned *away* from earth.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
http://www.russianspaceweb.com/spektr_r.html
Anyone else think of the SPECTRE (SPecial Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion) organization from the James Bond movies when they read the name of the satellite?
preferring yet another sideshow where murderers prosecute vandals.
it's scheduled to get even whackier?
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I read that as:
Russian (adj) launches (noun) delayed (verb) radiotelescope (noun)
instead of
Russia (noun) launches (verb) delayed (adj) radiotelescope (noun)
My brain inserting one little letter can change so much!
Well done Russia. Finally some competition in space research area. Maybe this will also get NASA some badly needed funds. Then again, war in Afghanistan/Iraq/Libya/... is more pressing. And making rich richer by reducing the tax they are paying. They need their gold plated Lamborghinis after all, silver plating just won't do.
Why do niggers like to dress in sports jerseys? So they can pretend to have a job skill!
VLBI fans, rejoice ! Really, after the Japanese VSOP mission, it has been a long wait for this one (first proposed in the 1980's). Together with antennas on the ground, RadioAstron should provide the highest resolution of any human telescope, anywhere, at any wavelength. (Here are some more technical details.)
The USA pioneered the use of this technology (the first space VLBI, in the 1980's, used a NASA TDRSS communication satellite that was underused after the Challenger disaster), and Irwin Shapiro suggested putting VLBI terminals on the Moon well before that, but here is another case where the USA can't seem to actually get its stuff into the orbit.
"Using a highly elliptical orbit of around 340,000 km"
this in no way describes the eccentricity of the orbit. It simply tells us that the apogee is 340,000 km...
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I'm shocked. If only we could form some sort of giant national space agency to compete with Russia in space. Nah, it'd be expensive, and we'd probably need a bunch of German scientists or something.
Why should Paris Hilton's pet chihuahua suffer wearing cheaper jewelery just because some undeserving peasant wants to go to school, or doesn't want his child to starve, or doesn't want to drown in a flood? If peasants really want those things, they can get them for themselves! Stop punishing the chihuahua just because you're a lazy bum who thinks the government has the right to force innocent corporations to not poison toddlers! Commies! you're all a buncha commies! [/conservolibertarianstrawman]
"It became first launch..."
This totally made my day, and I couldn't continue reading it without a Russian accent.