Germany switches off black hole telescope on Russian satellite, halts space cooperation

By Tereza Pultarova published about 10 hours ago


Germany stopped all science cooperation with Russia over its Ukraine invasion, but space station work continues.

A German-built space telescope making the largest ever map of black holes in the universe has been switched off after Germany halted all science cooperation with Russia to protest that country's invasion of Ukraine.

The black hole-hunting telescope, called eROSITA, launched in 2019 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan aboard the Russian-built Spectrum-Roentgen-Gamma satellite. The mission was jointly funded by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and Russia's space agency Roscosmos.

On Wednesday, a spokesperson for Germany's Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, which built and operates eROSITA, told Space.com in an email that the telescope was "placed into safe mode during ground contact on Saturday, February 26."

More:
https://www.space.com/germany-halts-russia-black-hole-telescope-space-cooperation