Japan has lost contact with its satellite Astro-H, launched on February 17 to observe black holes and galaxy clusters.
Communication with the device failed from the start of its operations, scheduled for Saturday, March 26, at 4.40pm, said Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA.
The cause of the communication failure is being investigated while JAXA is trying to retrieve the satellite from a brief signal it received during its investigations, although it acknowledged it has been unable to establish the current status of the unit.
Meanwhile, the US Joint Space Operations Center, which tracks artificial objects orbiting the Earth, reported via Twitter that it has observed five objects near the Japanese satellite, suggesting that the device could have suffered several "ruptures".
Jonathan McDowell, an astronaut from the Harvard-Smithsonian Astrophysics Center, however, said on Twitter that the presence of "rubble" does not mean that the unit is shattered, but small parts may have come off and that the satellite "could basically be intact".
The Astro-H, about 14 metres long and weighing 2.7 tonnes, is the heaviest satellite launched by Japan.
The device, manufactured by JAXA and NASA, together with other institutions, aimed to orbit about 580 kilometres high to observe black holes and distant galaxy clusters through its gamma ray detectors and four x-ray telescopes, including the microcalorimetre x-ray, a latest generation instrument that has the highest spectrum to observe x-rays in space.
The satellite was launched aboard an H-2A rocket from the space station on the island of Tanegashima in Kagoshima Prefecture.
