Talk:Spektr-R

Comparison to HST
The press releases describing RadioAstron makes a bunch of misleading statements, such as it being "the largest telescope in space" or it "having a thousand times the resolution of Hubble". RadioAstron is not the largest telescope in space, either radio or optical and either current or past. The difference is that most of the other 10-m-diameter collecting areas are Earth-observing satellites looking down. And saying that it has a thousand times the resolution of Hubble isn't right either. By itself, RadioAstron has very poor resolution. It is only useful when combined with existing VLBI networks. The RadioAstron+ground VLBI system does have ~1000x the angular resolution of Hubble, but that is not news. Ground-based (and earlier space-based) VLBI has met/exceeded that resolution for the last 15 years or more. What RadioAstron does is to provide higher resolution at long wavelengths.

Simply speaking, the press release does not reflect the real (and very useful) capabilities of the telescope. For citations for all that I have said, I refer you to the articles on VLBI, the VLBA, and radio interferometry in general. 76.91.29.249 (talk) 08:06, 21 July 2011 (UTC)


 * The previous largest space telescope was Herschel at 3.6m. This is 10m.  Tell me, which is larger?Crispmuncher (talk) 15:08, 21 July 2011 (UTC).
 * How are you defining "largest space telescope"? In terms of both aperture and collecting area, Herschel is most definitely not the previous largest space telescope, and RadioAstron is not the largest.  The Shuttle Radar Topography Mission used a 60 m boom for synthetic-aperture measurements of the Earth, and the Inflatable Antenna Experiment deployed a 14-m mirror.  That doesn't include the various capabilities of spy satellites that can be inferred from publicly available data. 169.232.144.91 (talk) 23:11, 21 July 2011 (UTC)


 * As for the interferometry point, how can it be misleading when the very sentence you deleted begins "With its Earth-based companions..."? The high resolution attainable with this set-up is its primary reason for existence.  I understand VLBI well enough, thank you, and sure, it has been in use for decades, but the resolution attainable is a function of wavelength and separation.  What other network has a remotely comparable separation?  Give an example, not a meaningless assertion that other stuff exists.  We have specific sources here we are able to point to for those assertions: you have not even pointed to something else, let alone give a source that shows what you say to be true.  This article exists to document this project and is capabilities, and yes, to make comparison to other similar projects.  If in some respects it is superior to more famous scopes that deserves to be documented.  National prestige  and similar motivations are not reason to suppress that. Crispmuncher (talk) 15:08, 21 July 2011 (UTC).
 * Other network: I already gave an example: the VLBA at high frequency beats RadioAstron at low frequency. As another example: HALCA beat RadioAstron too.  I've revised the article so that it still includes the Hubble comparison, but makes it clear that ground-based VLBI can also reach that resolution.  Good enough? 169.232.144.91 (talk) 23:00, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Clarification: I also removed 'detailed' from the description of the images. Apart from being subjective, that is misleading because RadioAstron's images will be limited by having only a few long baselines at a limited range of angles along the line from Earth to the satellite's apogee.  That makes a messy beam pattern, which is very good for looking at compact sources without too much structure, but not for imaging extended complicated objects.  If and when it is tied in with Astro-G at 8 GHz, things will look much better.  169.232.144.91 (talk) 23:17, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Those can't be compared. VLBA has a greatest resultion of 0.17mas.  RadioAstron has a maximum resolution of 7uas. 24x increase, no?  The space experiments also prove nothing.  They both were not telescopes and they are both not currently in orbit, so the old opening sentence is still true. The IAE didn't do anything so I don't no why you cite it - it was a test of inflating large strcutures, never put to any kind of real use.  Read the papers on it.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Flying Llamas (talk • contribs) 23:46, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

sourced and relevant are two unrelated categories. you can divide any two given numbers to get a third number. dividing the angular resolution of an optical telescope and a radio telescope is reuters quality. you could also calculate that its energy use is how many times of an iphone. or how many times more expensive than a pizza. that's why people don't edit wikipedia anymore. we are fed up with that, we work on improving articles, but some zealots never give up to put their bullshit back because they love it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.21.51.43 (talk) 14:28, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Final orbit
When will it reach its final orbit, and at what angles to the ecliptic are the plane and major axis of that orbit ? - Rod57 (talk) 15:34, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Status in Sept 2012 ?
This mission was launched over one year ago (July 2011), yet we seem to have not status information 14 months later. Is it operational? Has it reached its desired orbit? Has the antenna been successfully deployed? A year after launch it begins to look silly to say it "will" do this or that when nothing is reported. How should we handle this in the article? Does anyone know anything?

As an astronomer myself I would love to see it succeed, but I am getting worried. Wwheaton (talk) 18:23, 13 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes, it's on. This article should be updated from Russian wp or directly from radioastron page (it seems there is something in the news)--213.208.170.194 (talk) 07:11, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Proposed automatic updating of orbital elements
I've proposed that this article be included in a trial involving using a bot to update orbital elements automatically on a fortnightly basis. I've started a discussion at WikiProject Spaceflight regarding this article and nine others, and would welcome some input from the users involved in maintaining the pages in question. -- W.  D.   Graham  21:01, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Latest Changes(09.03.2014)
I just wanted to notify you that I made serious changes to this page by adding more information as well as new images. By this moment the following contributions have been made:
 * Added more information to introduction
 * New heading "History of the Project"
 * Added information to Overview heading
 * New heading "Observing Techniques"
 * New links have been added
 * New photos have been added to gallery and main photo

Here is my Sandbox

If you have any questions or any ideas by improving this page, please contact me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Csc104h (talk • contribs) 02:32, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Past tense? Science results?
Why is the article written entirely in past tense? Did it fail to launch? Did it explode? If it actually made it to orbit, and is operational, can someone change this to present-tense, to indicate what is happening? In English, past tense is used to indicate something that was planned, but did not actually occur.

And .. if it did make it to orbit, is it scientifically operational? Have any science results been obtained? For example, was Messier 87 or Messier 84 observed, or not? For how long? How frequently? 67.198.37.16 (talk) 19:58, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Yes, the spacecraft is operating normally as of April 2016. Considering this, the past tense in the article reads really funny. The scientific operations are planned at least until summer 2017 as indicated in the 4th call for observing proposals. Of course, the observations may end earlier or continue in late 2017 and beyond depending on the technical condition of the spacecraft. The current technical status of the space radio telescope is described in the RadioAstron User Handbook. The official list of publications resulting from the RadioAstron mission may be found here. Additional information may be found in the RadioAstron Newsletter and in the recent press-releases from NRAO and MPIfR. Kirx (talk) 13:28, 18 April 2016 (UTC)