IKAROS... One month from today, a uniquely-designed spacecraft built by the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is scheduled to be launched from the Tanegashima Space Center to embark on a groundbreaking flight that will test a new form of propulsion in deep space. Known as the Interplanetary Kite-craft Accelerated by Radiation of the Sun, or IKAROS (as in the Greek figure, Icarus), this probe will use light from the Sun to propel it through the inner solar system. IKAROS will launch into space onboard a rocket that’s carrying another robotic craft named Akatsuki...which will enter orbit around Venus and study the greenhouse planet after Akatsuki arrives there this December (assuming it launches as scheduled at 2:44 PM, Pacific Daylight Time, on May 17).
While the Akatsuki spacecraft will spend its entire life circling Venus, the IKAROS solar sail will fly pass this world and venture around the Sun. Its giant sail will be able to be adjusted in ways that allow it to steer through the vacuum of space...by controlling how much sunlight is reflected off a given area on the sail’s polyimide surface, and thus allowing IKAROS to change direction in flight. Where IKAROS will end up at the end of its voyage remains to be seen...but if this mission is successful, JAXA might ultimately send a much larger solar sail (complete with an ion engine, just like the one used onboard NASA’s Dawn spacecraft and JAXA’s Earth-bound Hayabusa probe) to Jupiter and nearby Trojan asteroids by the end of this decade.
Akatsuki and IKAROS (plus 3 smaller satellite payloads) will lift off towards Venus on an H-IIA rocket, which is the same launch vehicle that sent JAXA’s successful Kaguya spacecraft to the Moon in 2007. Below is a video that highlights the IKAROS mission. Unless you speak Japanese, just leave the computer speakers off and pay attention to the images. You’ll still get the gist of what this groundbreaking flight is all about by watchin 'em.
All images and video courtesy of JAXA
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