MOSCOW. Aug 15 (Interfax-AVN) - Russia's Spectrum R astrophysical observatory, which was put to orbit on July 18, made contact with the ground station in Pushchino last Saturday, the Lavochkin Research and Production Center said.
"The satellite antenna was re-oriented at the ground station for fulfilling this mission," the center said.
The station successfully received the signal from Spectrum R. "The condition of Spectrum R equipment is normal," the center said.
Spectrum R was designed within the Radioastron international project to order of the Federal Space Agency for studying solar wind, the interplanetary magnetic field, galaxies, quasars, black holes and neutron stars. It weighs 3,850 kilograms and has a useful life of five years.
The observatory is based on the Navigator universal platform developed at Lavochkin and a space radio-telescope with a ten-meter antenna built by the Astro-Space Center of the Physics Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
The Navigator platform carries a control unit, an electric power network and a propulsion unit.
The radio-telescope has a parabolic antenna and transmission systems. The antenna's reflector is made up of the central mirror and 27 lobes.