A Japanese Solar Sail That Launched in 2010 Has Officially Ended Its Mission...

JAXA

End of 15-Year Operation of the Small Scale Solar Powered Sail Demonstration Satellite, IKAROS (News Release)

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) will complete operations for the Small Scale Solar Powered Sail Demonstration Satellite, IKAROS (the Interplanetary Kite-craft Accelerated by Radiation Of the Sun) and end the spacecraft's search operations on May 15, 2025. After this date, JAXA will no longer track IKAROS and all operations will end.

IKAROS was launched on May 21, 2010, together with the Venus Climate Orbiter, Akatsuki. IKAROS became the first in the world to successfully demonstrate a solar sail and solar power sail. By December 2011, after achieving all mission goals, the propellant was close to depletion and attitude control was difficult.

IKAROS began to repeatedly enter and exit from hibernation mode (shutdown state).

In order to continue receiving radio signals from IKAROS after the spacecraft woke from hibernation, it was necessary to accurately predict the orbit and attitude movement of the solar sail during the hibernation mode. By searching for IKAROS after waking from hibernation, the validity of this motion model was able to be verified and the accuracy improved. Radio waves were successfully received from IKAROS until the fourth wake-up, but after the spacecraft entered hibernation for the fifth time in May 2015, no radio waves from IKAROS have been detected.

It has been determined that there is only an extremely small possibility of receiving radio signals from IKAROS in the future, and so it has been decided to end operations.

The development, launch and operation of IKAROS was made possible thanks to the support and cooperation of the many participating organizations, and the encouragement from around the world. We are deeply grateful.

Thank you very much.

The achievements of IKAROS will be inherited by a number of upcoming missions. In the area of solar sails, the development of the Powered Innovative Earth-orbiter with Reorientable Inclined Sail (PIERIS) is underway, which aims to demonstrate integrated attitude-orbit control of an ultra-small solar sail. Attitude control using solar pressure torque is currently being carried out or planned for the Extended Mission of the Hayabusa2 spacecraft, the next-generation of small body sample return missions, and other explorations in space.

For solar power sails, thin-film solar cell paddles are being developed for application to outer planetary explorers with the OPENS program, as well as other missions.

Although the operation of IKAROS has ended, our mission through the inherited results of the IKAROS spacecraft, is by no means at an end. We believe that the best way to return the support we have received is the continued development of solar sails and solar power sails. We want to thank everyone once again, and we look forward to your support in the future.

Source: Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency

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JAXA


JAXA / The Planetary Society (U.S.)

LightSail 2's Mission Has Achieved Its Main Objective!

The Planetary Society

LightSail 2 Spacecraft Successfully Demonstrates Flight by Light (Press Release)

Pasadena, CA — Years of computer simulations. Countless ground tests. They've all led up to now. The Planetary Society's crowdfunded LightSail 2 spacecraft is successfully raising its orbit solely on the power of sunlight.

Since unfurling the spacecraft's silver solar sail last week, mission managers have been optimizing the way the spacecraft orients itself during solar sailing. After a few tweaks, LightSail 2 began raising its orbit around the Earth. In the past 4 days, the spacecraft has raised its orbital high point, or apogee, by about 2 kilometers. The perigee, or low point of its orbit, has dropped by a similar amount, which is consistent with pre-flight expectations for the effects of atmospheric drag on the spacecraft. The mission team has confirmed the apogee increase can only be attributed to solar sailing, meaning LightSail 2 has successfully completed its primary goal of demonstrating flight by light for CubeSats.

"We're thrilled to announce mission success for LightSail 2," said LightSail program manager and Planetary Society chief scientist Bruce Betts. "Our criteria was to demonstrate controlled solar sailing in a CubeSat by changing the spacecraft’s orbit using only the light pressure of the Sun, something that’s never been done before. I'm enormously proud of this team. It's been a long road and we did it."

The milestone makes LightSail 2 the first spacecraft to use solar sailing for propulsion in Earth orbit, the first small spacecraft to demonstrate solar sailing, and just the second-ever solar sail spacecraft to successfully fly, following Japan's IKAROS, which launched in 2010. LightSail 2 is also the first crowdfunded spacecraft to successfully demonstrate a new form of propulsion.

"For The Planetary Society, this moment has been decades in the making," said Planetary Society CEO Bill Nye. "Carl Sagan talked about solar sailing when I was in his class in 1977. But the idea goes back at least to 1607, when Johannes Kepler noticed that comet tails must be created by energy from the Sun. The LightSail 2 mission is a game-changer for spaceflight and advancing space exploration."

On Monday, LightSail 2 sent home a new full-resolution image captured by its camera during solar sail deployment. The perspective is opposite to last week’s full-resolution image and shows the sail more fully deployed. LightSail 2's aluminized Mylar sail shines against the blackness of space, with the Sun peeking through near a sail boom.

The mission team will continue raising LightSail 2's orbit for roughly a month, until the perigee decreases to the point where atmospheric drag overcomes the thrust from solar sailing. During the orbit-raising period, the team will continue optimizing the performance of the solar sail.

"We've been working since sail deployment to refine the way the spacecraft tracks the Sun," said LightSail 2 project manager Dave Spencer. "The team has done a great job getting us to the point where we can declare mission success. Moving ahead, we're going to continue working to tune the sail control performance and see how much we can raise apogee over time."

One such refinement involves LightSail 2's single momentum wheel, which rotates the spacecraft broadside and then edge-on to the Sun each orbit to turn the thrust from solar sailing on and off. Momentum wheels can “saturate,” hitting predefined speed limits, after which they are no longer effective at rotating the spacecraft. Most spacecraft use chemical thrusters to desaturate momentum wheels; LightSail 2 relies on electromagnetic torque rods, which orient the spacecraft by pushing against Earth's magnetic field.

LightSail 2’s momentum wheel currently reaches its saturation limit a couple of times per day, and desaturating the wheel temporarily takes the spacecraft out of its proper orientation for solar sailing. The mission team already applied a software update that increased the time between saturation events, and is also working to automate the desaturation process. Both refinements should result in improved solar sailing performance.

After LightSail 2's month-long orbit raising phase, the spacecraft will begin to deorbit, eventually reentering the atmosphere in roughly a year. The aluminized Mylar sail, about the size of a boxing ring, may currently be visible for some observers at dusk and dawn. The Planetary Society's mission control dashboard shows upcoming passes based on user location, and includes a link to a page that highlights passes when the sail is more likely to be visible.

Roughly 50,000 Planetary Society members and private citizens from more than 100 countries, as well as foundations and corporate partners, donated to the LightSail 2 mission, which cost $7 million from 2009 through March 2019.

"LightSail 2 proves the power of public support," said Planetary Society COO Jennifer Vaughn. "This moment could mark a paradigm shift that opens up space exploration to more players. It amazes me that 50,000 people came together to fly a solar sail. Imagine if that number became 500,000 or 5 million. It’s a thrilling concept."

The Planetary Society shares LightSail program data with other organizations so that solar sail technology can be applied to future space exploration missions. The Society presented initial LightSail 2 results this week at the 5th International Symposium on Solar Sailing in Aachen, Germany. Results are also being shared with NASA's NEA Scout mission, which is launching a solar sail-powered CubeSat to visit a near-Earth asteroid as early as next year.

LightSail 2 is one of several Planetary Society science and technology projects that aim to advance space science and exploration. Earlier this month, NASA chose PlanetVac, a Society-funded technology built by Honeybee Robotics that simplifies the process of collecting samples from other worlds, to fly to the Moon as part of the agency's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program.

The LightSail program began in 2009 under the direction of Planetary Society co-founder Louis Friedman, following the launch of Cosmos 1, the world's first solar sail that did not reach orbit. Friedman and Society co-founders Carl Sagan and Bruce Murray championed the idea of solar sailing more than 4 decades ago with a proposed solar sail mission to Halley's Comet.

Source: The Planetary Society

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The Planetary Society

Falcon Heavy Launches on Its Second Flight...Paving the Way for LightSail 2!

SpaceX

Yesterday evening [at 6:35 PM, EDT (3:35 PM, PDT)], SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket successfully launched on its second flight from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida...flawlessly placing the Arabsat 6A spacecraft in a supersynchronous transfer orbit [with an apogee of nearly 56,000 miles (90,000 kilometers) and a perigee of 200 miles (300 kilometers)] above the Earth. To add to Thursday's triumphant mission for SpaceX, the three Falcon 9 boosters that comprised Falcon Heavy managed to land safely—with the two side boosters touching down on a pair of landing sites at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, and the core booster successfully reaching the SpaceX drone ship Of Course I Still Love You stationed 615 miles (990 kilometers) off the coast of Florida. The core booster for the first Falcon Heavy mission fell short of this achievement last year.


SpaceX

With flight #2 for Falcon Heavy now in the books, SpaceX can begin preparing for the more ambitious third flight of the powerful launch vehicle. Known as Space Test Program 2 (or STP-2), Falcon Heavy's next mission is dedicated to the U.S. Air Force and will involve placing 25 different satellites in three different orbits. Among those satellites is a student-built spacecraft known as Prox-1—which itself will be the carrier for LightSail 2, a privately-funded solar sail built by The Planetary Society...a nonprofit space advocacy group based in Pasadena, California.


SpaceX

The first LightSail, which was launched in 2015, was a major success...having lifted off in May of that year and deploying its solar sail less than a month later. There were issues (such as communication glitches and computer resets) with this solar sail that will hopefully be rectified on LightSail 2. If all goes as planned, LightSail 2 will successfully deploy from Prox-1 about 447 miles (720 kilometers) above the Earth, smoothly unfurl its sails, and begin demonstrating maneuvering capabilities propelled by sunlight that will pave the way for bigger solar sails that will venture deeper into outer space (like Japan's IKAROS spacecraft that flew past Venus in late 2010).


SpaceX

The Falcon Heavy carrying LightSail 2 is tentatively scheduled for launch next month (on May 31)—but that will obviously change as LightSail 2 itself is still in storage at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in California. When Falcon Heavy does fly again, it will be another triumphant moment for SpaceX's giant reusable rocket...and a significant moment for spacecraft that may someday pave the way for vehicles (both manned and unmanned) to travel to interstellar space within a short amount of time! Happy Friday.


The Planetary Society

BepiColombo Is Now Headed to the First Rock from the Sun!

2018 ESA - CNES - Arianespace

At 6:45 PM, Pacific Daylight Time (9:45 PM, Eastern Daylight Time) yesterday, a European Ariane 5 rocket blasted off from Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guiana...sending the BepiColombo spacecraft on a 7-year journey to Mercury. A joint mission by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), BepiColombo will arrive at the planet in early December of 2025...but not before conducting six flybys of Mercury along the way. Comprising BepiColombo are three components: the Mercury Transfer Module (which will propel BepiColombo on its 7-year trip via four ion thrusters), ESA's Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and JAXA's Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (a.k.a. the MIO satellite). It is upon arrival at Mercury around December 5, 2025, that MIO will separate from MPO to enter its own orbit around the desolate world. The BepiColombo mission will last through May 1, 2027—and possibly through May 1, 2028 if it's granted an extended mission.


ESA / BepiColombo / MTM – CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

Aboard the MIO satellite is a memory card bearing the names and messages of 6,494 people (including one by me), which were submitted online earlier this year. Just as an FYI, Japan allowed folks to send their names and messages to the Moon via the Kaguya orbiter in 2007, and it allowed folks to fly their names and messages to Venus via the IKAROS solar sail in 2010, and the Akatsuki spacecraft in 2015. So Japan is responsible for sending folks like me on a virtual journey to three planetary bodies in our solar system [my name is at Mars courtesy of NASA's Phoenix, Curiosity and MAVEN spacecraft (and the InSight lander next month, hopefully)]! Thanks JAXA. And Godspeed on your voyage, Bepi! Happy Saturday.




JAXA


JAXA


JAXA

Oh, China— Just Keep Droppin' the Ball...

Ten years ago this month, I posted this lengthy Blog entry highlighting my disappointment when I found out that I missed the opportunity to have my name on a DVD that was placed aboard NASA's New Horizons spacecraft. The disappointment was so great that not only did it bring back my obsession for space exploration in a big way (the last time I was a major space geek was back in 8th grade...21 years ago), but it motivated me to keep track of every future interplanetary missions that NASA and other government space agencies developed that would have the potential of allowing the public to place names on them. It was after losing my chance to fly past Pluto and into interstellar space aboard New Horizons that the Dawn asteroid mission started collecting monikers for its ion propulsion-powered orbiter (Dawn was briefly canceled by NASA due to technical reasons a few weeks later, in October of 2005—but was reinstated in March of 2006). In October of 2006, the Phoenix Mars mission started collecting names via the California-based space advocacy group, The Planetary Society, and a little over a month after that, Japan's space agency (the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA) collected names to be place on its SELENE spacecraft (eventually renamed to Kaguya) that was destined for the Moon. These three robotic probes were launched in 2007 alone.


NASA / JHU APL / SwRI / Steve Gribben

Jump to 2015, and NASA and JAXA have given me the opportunity to have a virtual presence on more than a dozen missions. Not just Dawn, Phoenix and Kaguya (and Deep Impact, which NASA collected names for back in 2003...that intentionally got obliterated by a comet's nucleus in 2005), but the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, Kepler space telescope, JAXA's Akatsuki Venus orbiter, IKAROS solar sail and asteroid-bound Hayabusa 2 spacecraft, the Curiosity Mars rover, the MAVEN Mars orbiter, the last three space shuttle missions (STS-133, STS-134 and STS-135) in 2011 and even Orion's first space voyage on Exploration Flight Test-1 last year. And next year, cross my fingers, my name plus hundreds of thousands of others will hopefully be soaring towards Mars and asteroid Bennu with NASA's InSight lander and the OSIRIS-REx sample return mission, respectively. Not bad... Not bad at all.


NASA

So what does this have to do with China, you ask? Well, not only is having my name aboard a spacecraft that will eventually leave our solar system on my wishlist (or to be blunt: bucket list), but I also think that it would be cool to have my name on the surface of the Moon (intact) as well. JAXA has been proposing a lunar lander (dubbed SELENE-2) that would be the follow-up to its successful Kaguya mission. However, this was back in 2008 (or 2009, I think) and SELENE-2 is nowhere near the assembly stage. It was originally scheduled to launch in 2013, then 2015, and then 2017, but now it's not slated to take flight till 2019 at the earliest. A U.S. lander that would touch down on the Moon's South Pole-Aitken basin was proposed through a competition by NASA's New Frontiers program, but it eventually lost out to the OSIRIS-REx mission that will head to asteroid Bennu in late 2016.


JAXA

So again—what does this have to do with China, you ask? Well— China's lunar rover, Yutu, launched and landed on the Moon in December of 2014...as part of the Chang'e 3 mission. Reading about Yutu online was exciting; it would've been more exciting, personally, if I knew that my name briefly strolled around the lunar surface aboard this rover. So now Chang'e 4 is in the planning stages, with another lander and rover slated to head back to the Moon by 2020. And after that, the Chang'e 5 mission...which would collect samples from the Moon's surface and return them to China next decade.


NASA / JPL - Caltech / MSSS

Admittedly, there's still enough time before Chang'e 4 launches that China could decide to follow in the footsteps of NASA, JAXA and the European Space Agency (which collected names for the Huygens lander that touched down on Saturn's moon Titan in 2005, courtesy of NASA's Cassini orbiter) and allow the public to take part in this mission by collecting names via the World Wide Web. Unfortunately, this is China... A Communist superpower that enjoys grabbing territory in the Pacific Ocean at the expense of its Asian neighbors (including the Philippines; I'm Filipino), improving its technological infrastructure by conducting industrial espionage on the United States, and of course, continuing to have an abysmal human-rights record. (And let's not ignore the recent news about Chinese naval ships milling about off the coast of Alaska.) I'm gonna come out and admit that my opinion for China, despite these negative qualities, would improve if Beijing at least allowed folks (not just its Chinese populace) to submit their monikers to fly on its next mission to the Moon's surface. China is, after all, a fledgling space-faring nation...and has the political will to conduct missions that NASA wants to do but otherwise can't due to those stupid things called budget cuts, continuing resolutions and sequestration.


NASA

So the gist of this entry: If I can't have my name on a New Horizons-type spacecraft that will venture towards interstellar space anytime soon, then I can at least have my name resting on the lunar surface the same way the first Yutu rover and Apollo hardware from 40-plus years ago still sit peacefully on the Moon's landscape. If JAXA follows through with SELENE 2 and launches it in 2019 (but not before collecting names for it a la Kaguya, Akatsuki, IKAROS and Hayabusa 2), then all is good with Chang'e 4. If not, then I hope China will one day open a webpage that allows Chinese and non-Chinese folks alike to submit their names to be placed aboard Yutu's successor. The same way that NASA is currently collecting names to be placed aboard NASA's InSight lander. The deadline is this Tuesday, September 8, by the way.

That is all. Again, Happy Labor Day weekend to my fellow Yanks!

JAXA

IKAROS Wakes Up From Hibernation Mode for the 4th Time (Press Release - April 30)

The IKAROS seemed to wake up from its hibernation mode in mid-March 2015, and JAXA searched for it based on its attitude and orbit prediction to receive its radio waves. On April 23 (Thursday), we successfully found the IKAROS, which is flying at a distance of about 120 million kilometers (75 million miles) from the Earth.

We will continue to receive data from the IKAROS until May to confirm its condition and analyze the information.

The IKAROS, launched in May 2010, completed its mission, and is now revolving around the sun about every 10 months. Power generation is insufficient for seven months out of 10 so the IKAROS goes into hibernation mode for this period by shutting down instruments. For the remaining three months, the IKAROS is awake with enough power so that we can receive data from it.

Source: Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency

GO LIGHTSAIL! Aiming For Launch In 2016 (And Possibly 2015 As Well)...

The Planetary Society

The Planetary Society just announced tonight that it is aiming to launch a privately-funded solar sailing spacecraft into Earth orbit in early 2016. Known as Lightsail-1, this craft would hitch a ride aboard SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket (which will make its maiden flight sometime next year) in April of 2016 and soar up to 450 miles above the Earth before deploying its Mylar-constructed solar sail. If successful, Lightsail would become the third craft [or fourth...depending on when NASA's Sunjammer takes flight (possibly by the end of this year)] to deploy an ultra-thin membrane out in deep space—behind Japan's IKAROS interplanetary probe and NASA's NanoSail-D (both launched in 2010).


The Planetary Society

The Lightsail launching in 2016 is actually known as Lightsail-B; The Planetary Society will possibly try to launch a test version, known as Lightsail-A, into low-Earth orbit aboard an Atlas V rocket in early 2015. Unlike Lightsail-B, however, Version A will only be used to test sail deployment, the craft's telecommunication system and take images. Lightsail-B will be the one to utilize its membrane to push off against sunlight as a means of propelling itself through deep space. If this mission is successful, Lightsail will definitely join IKAROS and company in paving the way for a new era of efficient propulsion through the cosmos. Godspeed!

IKAROS Update...

JAXA

IKAROS Wakes Up From Hibernation Mode for Third Time (Press Release - June 4)

The IKAROS seemed to wake up from its hibernation mode in mid-April, and JAXA searched for it based on its attitude and orbit prediction to receive its radio waves. On May 22 (Thu.), we successfully found the IKAROS, which is flying at a distance of about 230 million kilometers (143 million miles) from the Earth. We will continue to receive data from the IKAROS until mid-June to confirm its condition and analyze the information.

The IKAROS, launched in May 2010, completed its mission, and is now revolving around the sun about every 10 months. Power generation is insufficient for seven months out of 10 so the IKAROS goes into hibernation mode for this period by shutting down instruments. For the remaining three months, the IKAROS is awake with enough power so that we can receive data from it.

Source: Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency

Photos of the Day... Check out my Air & Space Wall of Fame (which has actually been up since...2005)—which is right next to my SoCal Sports Wall of Fame...

IKAROS Update... Yep— Japan’s trailblazing solar sail, which launched from the country's Tanegashima Space Center in late May of last year, is still going strong millions of miles out in deep space.

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Result of IKAROS 'Reverse Spin Operation' (Press Release - October 18)

On Oct. 18, 2011 (Japan Standard Time), JAXA performed a "reverse spin operation" of the IKAROS. As a result of the jet thrust to shift IKAROS's spin direction to the reverse way for about 20 minutes from 7:20 a.m. on the 18th, the membrane successfully spun in the reverse course without being entangled. The IKAROS is in good shape after reversing its spin, and its spin rate at the time of completing this operation was -0.24 rpm.

We are currently evaluating if we will continue the mission. For assessing it more in detail, the following information must be acquired.

1) Attitude related data from the data recorder that accumulated information during the reverse spin.

2) Data necessary for predicting future attitude change.

We will announce the detailed evaluation results as soon as we complete data acquisition and analysis.

Source: JAXA


JAXA

PHOTOS OF THE DAY... In case you wanted to know how huge of an obsessive space nerd I am, here are the latest (or oldest) evidence of that. Ever since I was in 4th grade (back in um, 1989-90), I would cut out practically every space-related article from a newspaper (specifically the Los Angeles Times, since I live in SoCal) and put them in plastic report covers I bought at the local supermarket. My interest in the space program started in the 3rd grade, and increased dramatically around August 25, 1989, when the Voyager 2 spacecraft flew past Neptune and its icy moon Triton. During this flyby, I would get up early in the morning and see a photo that Voyager 2 took of the giant gas planet and its main satellite on the front page of the L.A. Times almost every day during the following week. In the photos above is the very first album (I don’t want to call it a scrapbook, despite the fact the latest albums are entitled The Space Scrapbook, haha) I worked on. As you can see, it was actually autographed by someone who worked at NASA. He visited my elementary school and gave a presentation to the entire student body when I was in 6th grade back in 1992.





As you can see below, I also did an album (back in 5th grade, I think. Or maybe it was 7th grade?) on the Persian Gulf War (the first one in 1991, that is) and the U.S. involvement in Somalia (also in ’91). Yep, I’m a space/tech/war nut who has lots of free time on my hands...especially since last January. That is all.

TitanFan - NASASpaceflight.com

IT WAS BOUND TO HAPPEN... After having my name successfully fly into space onboard the Cassini Saturn orbiter, Deep Impact’s "impactor", the Phoenix Mars Lander, Japan’s Kaguya lunar spacecraft, the Dawn space probe, the Kepler telescope, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, Japan’s IKAROS solar sail and the Akatsuki spacecraft (even though it failed to enter Venus’ orbit last December), it was inevitable that my name would fail to soar beyond Earth (again) onboard a future space mission. Turns out— Glory was that mission. Much like what happened during the launch of the Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) in 2009, the payload fairing that encapsulated Glory onboard the Taurus XL rocket (which was also used by OCO) failed to separate during flight this morning, preventing the vehicle from gaining sufficient speed to reach Earth orbit...and causing another NASA climate-observing satellite to find its final resting spot at the bottom of the south Pacific Ocean. Awesome. A microchip bearing my name, along with that of 243,200 others, is now—to borrow a line from Godfather: Part 1—sleeping with the fishes. Oh well.



This isn’t the first spacecraft with my name on it to end up underwater. My name was also onboard Russia’s Mars ’96 lander...which also plunged into the Pacific Ocean after experiencing a launch mishap 15 years ago. Spaceflight is definitely risky business. My apologies to the Glory mission team who has to suffer through this devastating setback and the Orbital Sciences team (who was responsible for the Taurus XL) who spent the last 2 years trying to fix the payload fairing issue. That is all.


NASA

JAXA / JSPEC

IKAROS Update... According to a blog posted by The Planetary Society today, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) IKAROS solar sail finally completed its primary mission that started last May and culminated with a flyby of Venus last month. Shown above is a self-portrait of IKAROS, with Venus in the background, that was taken on December 8, 2010 (Japan Standard Time)...the day the solar sail flew within 50,000 miles (80,000 kilometers) of the greenhouse planet.

According to IKAROS’ mission blog (whose text is in Japanese... It can be translated using Google), the solar sail is currently 77 million miles from the Sun, 77 million miles from the Earth and now 10 million miles from Venus. Since it relies on centrifugal force to keep its sail fully deployed at all times, IKAROS is currently rotating at 2.1 revolutions per minute. That is all.

JAXA

AKATSUKI Update... I would write a long entry about this, but I don’t wanna. Basically, Japan’s first mission to the planet Venus has hit a major snag. Akatsuki was unable to enter Venus’ orbit after initiating an Orbit Insertion Maneuver (OIM) at 3:49 PM, Pacific Standard Time yesterday. The flight can still be salvaged, if the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) waits 6 years till Akatsuki flies close to Venus again to initiate another OIM—which will probably not be likely since the spacecraft probably used up a lot of fuel on yesterday’s try. It’s 2003 all over again...when Japan’s Nozomi spacecraft failed to enter Mars’ orbit after being launched in 1998. Of course, if Hayabusa is any indication, resourceful engineering and intestinal fortitude by the Akatsuki flight team may lead to a triumphant moment between...December 2016 and January 2017 (the next time Akatsuki approaches the greenhouse planet).

On a personal note, the streak has ended for me. Since 2007, every spacecraft that I’ve submitted my name on is either still going strong or ended in success. NASA’s Phoenix Mars lander, JAXA’s Kaguya lunar orbiter and IKAROS solar sail, NASA’s Dawn space probe, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and Kepler spacecraft... I guess I can’t complain about this unfortunate setback with Akatsuki when my name is sitting safely on the Martian surface and as far in deep space as the Asteroid Belt (and even Saturn and headed to Pluto...if you visit the link posted in the first sentence of this paragraph). Also, there are three spacecraft with my name on ‘em scheduled to launch in 2011 that will hopefully make up for this loss. I’d elaborate, but I don’t wanna jinx it. Let’s just say I’ll hopefully be heading to Earth orbit with two of these missions, and the third one will be heading to the Martian surface to join her sister rovers, Spirit and Opportunity. That is all.

PHOTOS OF THE DAY... On June 15, Japan Standard Time, a small free-floating camera was jettisoned from IKAROS into space to photograph the solar sail in its entirety. The camera, known as DCAM2, had a battery life of only 15 minutes...but that was enough time for it to drift off to the point where the spacecraft was just a little speck in the images. You can read more about this here (You can use Google toolbar to translate the page, which is in Japanese).



It’s too bad JAXA didn’t post high resolution versions of these images... I had to use Adobe Photoshop to enlarge one of the pics into an 8 x 10 photo that I plan to frame on my wall. That pic is posted at the top of this entry.







All images courtesy of JAXA

Ozaki Takashi / Yomiuri Shimbun

CONGRATULATIONS to the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) for the successful return of its Hayabusa spacecraft...which spent almost 5 years traveling back to Earth after (hopefully) collecting rock samples from the surface of asteroid Itokawa. If you've been reading online articles about Hayabusa for the past couple of weeks, you'd see how emotional folks in Japan were getting as the Little Space Probe That Could (click here to read about how the mission almost became a failure) struggled to return to our home planet. Imagine how emotional they would get if a JAXA-built Mars sample return spacecraft was heading back to Earth...

Anyways, now that Hayabusa has concluded its historic endeavor through space...maybe JAXA will devote more attention to the Venus-bound Akatsuki and IKAROS missions. Just because.



JAXA