The Japanese Space agency launched a satellite called Hitomi on February 17, with an aim to study black holes and other space mysteries. The satellite with X-ray telescopes could no longer be accessed by scientists since Saturday afternoon. The scientists are trying to figure out what had led to network failure.

Izumi Yoshizaki, a spokeswoman for Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, said they have been doing their best to restore the communication. However, they haven’t been successful so far. Joint Space Operations Center, or JSpOC, anticipated that Hitomi may have splintered into several pieces. The US military organization tracks and identifies objects in space. Yoshizaki also added that the Japanese space agency is trying to find whether the US military organization could be right with its projection or not.

According to Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, the satellite might have suffered an ‘energetic event’ that could possibly be a gas leak or a battery explosion. Consequently, the satellite’s antenna is toward a wrong direction halting communication channels.

McDowell added that there is danger that battery will run down as there will be no access to solar energy for its panel. It will be too late for space agency to come for its rescue as that consumes lots of time.

“Everyone’s just gutted to hear that they’ve run into this piece of bad luck, it’s so very sad. I know enough about how the sausage was made to know that this could have easily have happened to us. Space is very unforgiving,” said McDowell, who works with another high-tech space X-ray telescope, Chandra.