Science
XRISM
X-ray Space Telescope (Rebuilt After Predecessor's Catastrophic Failure) · JAXA / NASA / ESA
Right now
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XRISM is a resurrection. Its predecessor, Hitomi, was one of the most devastating failures in modern astronomy — a $286 million X-ray telescope that spun itself apart just five weeks after its 2016 launch when a software error triggered an uncontrolled tumble, destroying years of work before it collected a single full observation. JAXA and NASA rebuilt the mission from scratch, and XRISM launched in September 2023 carrying Resolve, an instrument so sensitive it can split X-ray light into a spectrum precise enough to measure the exact speed and composition of gas swirling at the edge of a black hole's event horizon. It's already delivered: in 2024, XRISM caught supermassive black hole winds blasting outward at a meaningful fraction of the speed of light — the kind of observation its predecessor never lived long enough to attempt.
Its orbit
- Orbit
- Low Earth Orbitcan appear as a fast-moving star at dawn or dusk
- Altitude
- 331–337 mi (532–543 km)
- Inclination
- 31.0°
- One orbit
- 95.2 minutes15.1 orbits a day
- NORAD ID
- 57800
- Int’l designator
- 2023-137A
- Launched
- 2023
Orbital elements from CelesTrak, as of 22 Sep 2026.