The Japanese space agency JAXA succeeded in capturing signals from lost X-ray satellite Hitomi, but unfortunately, the probe has apparently disintegrated into five pieces. US mission team had noticed space debris in the orbit of Hitomi.

On Saturday, JAXA lost contact with Hitomi, or ASTRO-H, when the satellite was to kick-off operations. Since then, the agency has been able to receive two signals from the space probe. First signal was received on Monday at around 8 am, and the other one on Tuesday at 10.30 am.

But, JAXA has no idea until now about what happened to the satellite or whether it can be recovered or not.

In a statement, JAXA said that the agency hasn’t been able to understand the state of probe’s health because the time frames for getting the signals were quite short.

When JAXA lost contact with the satellite, the US Joint Space Operations Center, the monitor authority for space debris, reported witnessing five objects in the same orbit as Hitomi. Now, JAXA has concurred that the sighting is indicating that the satellite somehow smashed on Saturday.

The agency said that for the investigation of the situation, it has been keeping an eye on objects, with the help of radar present at the Kamisaibara Space Guard Center (KSGC). It is also using telescopes located at the Bisei Space Guard Center (BSGC) that belong to the Japan Space Forum.

It added, “Up to now, the telescopes at BSGC detected two objects around the satellite’s original orbit, while radar at KSGC identified one of them. It is confirmed that the signal received at Santiago Tracking Station came from the orbital direction of object identified at KSGC”.

JAXA mentioned that it won’t give up and sustain investigation and try finding out the cause behind the breakdown of the satellite.