NASA plans to shut down Chandra (spacecraft, universe, telescope, seen)

[rjshae]

NASA is Planning to Shut Down One of the Great Observatories to Save Money

The US Government budget announcement in March left NASA with two billion dollars less than it asked for. The weeks that followed have left NASA with some difficult decisions forcing cuts across the agency. There will be a number of cuts across the agency but one recent decision came as quite a shock to the scientific community. NASA have just announced they are no longer going to support the Chandra X-Ray Observatory which has been operational since 1999 and made countless discoveries.

That's unfortunate news. I've seen quite a few papers citing results from the Chandra X-ray Observatory. It would seem like this is going to be a major loss for astronomy. Hopefully there will be a replacement at some point.

A Glance at Chandra's Major Achievements

[Laniakea2MASS]

The article also says Chandra has some issues regulating the temperature of the telescope and internal hardware. I guess they can easily use that excuse then to "save money."

I would hope we got enough observation tools out there now at least to keep looking at the universe like JWST, Roman telescope and all the huge land telescopes ready to be built.

[rjshae]

Originally Posted by Laniakea2MASS

The article also says Chandra has some issues regulating the temperature of the telescope and internal hardware. I guess they can easily use that excuse then to "save money."

I would hope we got enough observation tools out there now at least to keep looking at the universe like JWST, Roman telescope and all the huge land telescopes ready to be built.

None of those observe in the X-ray band. However, there are other orbiting X-ray telescopes currently in operation: XMM-Newton, Swift, XRISM, and IXPE. I don't know how much their capabilities overlap with Chandra.

[Cloudy Dayz]

NASA: Not A Space Agency. Unless something changes, future space exploration will have to come from China and other countries.

[Laniakea2MASS]

Here's a good article from Space.com that talks more about Chandra. Has some good photos in here also:

The Chandra X-ray spacecraft may soon go dark, threatening a great deal of astronomy
https://www.space.com/chandra-x-ray-...-fy2025-budget