Russian sun probe lost: official

Russian scientists acknowledged Monday that solar research satellite Koronas-Foton has been lost due to technical problems, barely a year after its launch.

The probe, also known as CORONAS-Photon, was launched into orbit by Russia on January 30, 2009 but lost connection with its controllers at the end of the year when a problem with its solar power led to battery failure.

"The probe has not functioned for almost five months which allows us with a good deal of certainty to announce its final death," said its creators, the Laboratory of X-Ray Astronomy of the Sun of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

It said that in early April the probe's batteries had the chance to be well charged by the sun but it still failed to make contact with the earth.

The probe had hoped to investigate energy accumulation in the sun's atmosphere, solar flares and the relationship between solar activity and magnetic storms on Earth.

(c) 2010 AFP