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96-620: The mission was developed and sponsored by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), involving teams from Japan, Italy, and the United States. CALET was launched aboard JAXA's H-II Transfer Vehicle Kounotori 5 (HTV-5) on 19 August 2015, and was placed on the International Space Station 's Japanese Kibo module . CALET is an astrophysics mission that searches for signatures of dark matter and provides

192-625: A hard X-ray detector (HXD). However, the XRS was rendered inoperable due to a malfunction which caused the satellite to lose its supply of liquid helium. The next JAXA x-ray mission is the Monitor of All-sky X-ray Image (MAXI) . MAXI continuously monitors astronomical X-ray objects over a broad energy band (0.5 to 30 keV). MAXI is installed on the Japanese external module of the ISS. On 17 February 2016, Hitomi (ASTRO-H)

288-542: A Moon flyby on a night of October 28, 2014, after which it entered elliptical Earth orbit, exceeding its designed lifetime by four times. The Beresheet lander operated by Israel Aerospace Industries and SpaceIL impacted the Moon on April 11, 2019, after a failed landing attempt. Following the abandoned US Constellation program , plans for crewed flights followed by moonbases were declared by Russia, ESA , China, Japan, India, and South Korea. All of them intend to continue

384-543: A domestic American capability to get back and forth to the surface of the moon.". The first commercial mission to the Moon was accomplished by the Manfred Memorial Moon Mission (4M), led by LuxSpace , an affiliate of German OHB AG . The mission was launched on 23 October 2014 with the Chinese Chang'e 5-T1 test spacecraft, attached to the upper stage of a Long March 3C /G2 rocket. The 4M spacecraft made

480-484: A function of energy, and possibly to unveil the nature of dark matter. Such sources seem to be able to accelerate particles to energies far higher than scientists can achieve on Earth using the largest accelerators . Understanding how nature does this is important to space travel and has possible applications here on Earth. The CALET Principal Investigator is Shoji Torii from the Waseda University , Japan; John Wefel

576-498: A future mission. On 14 September 2007, JAXA succeeded in launching the lunar orbit explorer Kaguya , also known as SELENE, on an H-2A rocket (costing 55 billion yen including launch vehicle), the largest such mission since the Apollo program . Its mission was to gather data on the Moon's origin and evolution . It entered lunar orbit on 4 October 2007. After 1 year and 8 months, it impacted

672-514: A lunar orbiter called ICUBE-Q along with Chang'e 6. In 2007, the X Prize Foundation together with Google launched the Google Lunar X Prize to encourage commercial endeavors to the Moon. A prize of $ 20 million was to be awarded to the first private venture to get to the Moon with a robotic lander by the end of March 2018, with additional prizes worth $ 10 million for further milestones. As of August 2016, 16 teams were reportedly participating in

768-607: A miniature satellite into orbit atop one of its SS520 series rockets. A second attempt on 2 February 2018 was successful, putting a four kilogram CubeSat into Earth orbit. The rocket, known as the SS-520-5, is the world's smallest orbital launcher. In 2023, JAXA began operating the H3 , which will replace the H-IIA and H-IIIB; the H3 is a liquid-fueled launch vehicle developed from a completely new design like

864-467: A number of experiments and observations, concluding it was a combination of the Moon's own light and the Moon's ability to absorb and emit sunlight. By the Middle Ages , before the invention of the telescope, an increasing number of people began to recognise the Moon as a sphere, though many believed that it was "perfectly smooth". In 1609, Galileo Galilei drew one of the first telescopic drawings of

960-475: A phenomenon in which the cloud top winds in the troposphere circulates around the planet faster than the speed that Venus itself rotates. A thorough explanation for this phenomenon has yet been found. JAXA/ISAS was part of the international Laplace Jupiter mission proposal from its foundation. A Japanese contribution was sought in the form of an independent orbiter to research Jupiter's magnetosphere, JMO (Jupiter Magnetospheric Orbiter). Although JMO never left

1056-441: A precedent helping to define regulatory standards for deep-space commercial activity in the future. Previously, private companies were restricted to operating on or around Earth. On 29 November 2018, NASA announced that nine commercial companies would compete to win a contract to send small payloads to the Moon in what is known as Commercial Lunar Payload Services . According to NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine , "We are building

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1152-490: A sub-payload CIRC (Compact Infrared Camera) to observe the Earth's surface in order to detect forest fires . The objectives are to understand the following: As a cosmic ray observatory, CALET aims to clarify high energy space phenomena and dark matter from two perspectives; one is particle creation and annihilation in the field of particle physics (or nuclear physics ) and the other is particle acceleration and propagation in

1248-476: Is Explore to Realize (formerly Reaching for the skies, exploring space ). On 1 October 2003, three organizations were merged to form the new JAXA: Japan's Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS), the National Aerospace Laboratory of Japan (NAL), and National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA). JAXA was formed as an Independent Administrative Institution administered by

1344-471: Is not pointed towards Earth. The mission was considered fully successful after confirmation that its primary goal, landing within 100 m (330 ft) of the target was achieved, despite subsequent issues. On 29 January, the lander resumed operations after being shutdown for a week. JAXA said it re-established contact with the lander and its solar cells were working again after a shift in lighting conditions allowed it to catch sunlight. After that, SLIM

1440-503: Is planned to have a temperature of just 4.5 K and will be much colder. Unlike Akari, which had a geocentric orbit , SPICA will be located at Sun–Earth L 2 . The launch is expected in 2027 or 2028 on JAXA's new H3 Launch Vehicle , however the mission is not yet fully funded. ESA and NASA may also each contribute an instrument. The SPICA mission was cancelled in 2020. Starting from 1979 with Hakucho (CORSA-b), for nearly two decades Japan had achieved continuous observation. However, in

1536-508: Is reviewing a new spacecraft mission to the Martian system; a sample return mission to Phobos called MMX (Martian Moons Explorer). First revealed on 9 June 2015, MMX's primary goal is to determine the origin of the Martian moons . Alongside collecting samples from Phobos, MMX will perform remote sensing of Deimos , and may also observe the atmosphere of Mars as well. As of December 2023, MMX

1632-476: Is the Japanese national air and space agency . Through the merger of three previously independent organizations, JAXA was formed on 1 October 2003. JAXA is responsible for research, technology development and launch of satellites into orbit , and is involved in many more advanced missions such as asteroid exploration and possible human exploration of the Moon . Its motto is One JAXA and its corporate slogan

1728-534: Is the co-principal investigator for the US team; Pier S. Marrocchesi, is the co-investigator from the Italy team. Unlike optical telescopes , CALET operates in a scanning mode. It records each cosmic ray event that enters its field of view and triggers its detectors to take measurements of the cosmic ray in the extremely high energy region of teraelectronvolts (TeV, one trillion electronvolts ). These measurements are recorded on

1824-515: Is the first all sky survey since the first infrared mission IRAS in 1983. (A 3.6 kg nanosatellite named CUTE-1.7 was also released from the same launch vehicle.) JAXA is also doing further R&D for increasing the performance of its mechanical coolers for its future infrared mission, SPICA . This would enable a warm launch without liquid helium. SPICA has the same size as the ESA Herschel Space Observatory mission, but

1920-417: Is time to take longer strides – time for a great new American enterprise – time for this nation to take a clearly leading role in space achievement, which in many ways may hold the key to our future on Earth. ...For while we cannot guarantee that we shall one day be first, we can guarantee that any failure to make this effort will make us last. ...I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving

2016-456: Is to be launched in fiscal year 2026. On 9 August 2004, ISAS successfully deployed two prototype solar sails from a sounding rocket. A clover-type sail was deployed at 122 km altitude and a fan type sail was deployed at 169 km altitude. Both sails used 7.5 micrometer -thick film. ISAS tested a solar sail again as a sub-payload to the Akari (ASTRO-F) mission on 22 February 2006. However

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2112-566: Is to have a solar sail mission to Jupiter after 2020. The first Japanese astronomy mission was the X-ray satellite Hakucho (CORSA-b), which was launched in 1979. Later ISAS moved into solar observation, radio astronomy through space VLBI and infrared astronomy. Active Missions: SOLAR-B , MAXI , SPRINT-A , CALET , XRISM Under Development: Retired: HALCA , ASTRO-F , ASTRO-EII , and ASTRO-H Cancelled(C)/Failed(F): ASTRO-E (F), ASTRO-G (C), Japan's infrared astronomy began with

2208-611: Is what causes the Moon to shine. Persian astronomer Habash al-Hasib al-Marwazi conducted various observations at the Al-Shammisiyyah observatory in Baghdad between 825 and 835. Using these observations, he estimated the Moon's diameter as 3,037 km (equivalent to 1,519 km radius) and its distance from the Earth as 346,345 km (215,209 mi). In the 11th century, the Islamic physicist Alhazen investigated moonlight through

2304-506: The Chang'e 1 robotic lunar orbiter on October 24, 2007. Originally planned for a one-year mission, the Chang'e 1 mission was very successful and ended up being extended for another four months. On March 1, 2009, Chang'e 1 was intentionally impacted on the lunar surface completing the 16-month mission. On October 1, 2010, China launched the Chang'e 2 lunar orbiter. China landed the rover Yutu and

2400-425: The Chang'e 3 lander on the Moon on December 14, 2013, became the third country to have done so. Chang'e 3 is the first spacecraft to soft-land on lunar surface since Luna 24 in 1976. Since the Chang'e 3 mission was a success, the backup lander Chang'e 4 was re-purposed for the new mission goals. China launched on 7 December 2018 the Chang'e 4 mission to the lunar farside . On January 3, 2019, Chang'e 4 landed on

2496-658: The H-II Transfer Vehicle six times. This cargo spacecraft was responsible for resupplying the Kibo Japanese Experiment Module on the International Space Station . To be able to launch smaller mission on JAXA developed a new solid-fueled rocket, the Epsilon as a replacement to the retired M-V . The maiden flight successfully happened in 2013. So far, the rocket has flown six times with one launch failure. In January 2017, JAXA attempted and failed to put

2592-604: The HALCA mission. Additional success was achieved with solar observation and research of the magnetosphere , among other areas. NASDA, which was founded on 1 October 1969, had developed rockets , satellites, and also built the Japanese Experiment Module . The old NASDA headquarters were located at the current site of the Tanegashima Space Center , on Tanegashima Island , 115 kilometers south of Kyūshū . NASDA

2688-632: The Hiten lunar mission in 1990. The first Japanese interplanetary mission was the Mars Orbiter Nozomi (PLANET-B), which was launched in 1998. It passed Mars in 2003, but failed to reach Mars orbit due to maneuvering systems failures earlier in the mission. Currently interplanetary missions remain at the ISAS group under the JAXA umbrella. However, for FY 2008 JAXA is planning to set up an independent working group within

2784-560: The Indian Space Research Organisation , launched Chandrayaan-1 , an uncrewed lunar orbiter, on October 22, 2008. The lunar probe was originally intended to orbit the Moon for two years, with scientific objectives to prepare a three-dimensional atlas of the near and far side of the Moon and to conduct a chemical and mineralogical mapping of the lunar surface. The orbiter released the Moon Impact Probe which impacted

2880-473: The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). By 2017, the lander was planned to be launched in 2021, but this was delayed until 2023 due to delays in SLIM's ride-share mission, X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM). It was successfully launched on 6 September 2023 at 23:42 UTC (7 September 08:42 Japan Standard Time). On 1 October 2023, the lander executed its trans-lunar injection burn. It entered orbit around

2976-645: The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter , on June 18, 2009, which has collected imagery of the Moon's surface. It also carried the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite ( LCROSS ), which investigated the possible existence of water in the crater Cabeus . GRAIL is another mission, launched in 2011. Following the decades-long lull in lunar exploration in the aftermath of the Cold War, the main push of US lunar exploration goals has coalesced under

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3072-517: The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) and the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC). Before the merger, ISAS was responsible for space and planetary research, while NAL was focused on aviation research. ISAS had been most successful in its space program in the field of X-ray astronomy during the 1980s and 1990s. Another successful area for Japan has been Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) with

3168-499: The Soviet Union , made a deliberate impact on the surface of the Moon on September 14, 1959. Prior to that the only available means of lunar exploration had been observations from Earth. The invention of the optical telescope brought about the first leap in the quality of lunar observations. Galileo Galilei is generally credited as the first person to use a telescope for astronomical purposes, having made his own telescope in 1609,

3264-451: The far side of the Moon . This is China's second lunar sample return mission, the first was achieved by Chang'e 5 from the lunar near side four years earlier. It also carried a Chinese rover called Jinchan to conduct infrared spectroscopy of lunar surface and imaged Chang'e 6 lander on lunar surface. The lander-ascender-rover combination was separated with the orbiter and returner before landing on 1 June 2024 at 22:23 UTC. It landed on

3360-524: The inner Solar System , and emphasis has been put on magnetospheric and atmospheric research. The Mars explorer Nozomi (PLANET-B), which ISAS launched prior to the merger of the three aerospace institutes, became one of the earliest difficulties the newly formed JAXA faced. Nozomi ultimately passed 1,000 km from the surface of Mars. On 20 May 2010, the Venus Climate Orbiter Akatsuki (PLANET-C) and IKAROS solar sail demonstrator

3456-534: The 15-cm IRTS telescope which was part of the SFU multipurpose satellite in 1995. ISAS also gave ground support for the ESA Infrared Space Observatory (ISO) infrared mission. JAXA's first infrared astronomy satellite was the Akari spacecraft, with the pre-launch designation ASTRO-F . This satellite was launched on 21 February 2006. Its mission is infrared astronomy with a 68 cm telescope. This

3552-666: The Apollo missions 11 through 17 (except Apollo 13 , which aborted its planned lunar landing). Luna 24 in 1976 was the last Lunar mission by either the Soviet Union or the U.S. until Clementine in 1994. Focus shifted to probes to other planets , space stations , and the Shuttle program . Before the "Moon race," the U.S. had pre-projects for scientific and military moonbases: the Lunex Project and Project Horizon . Besides crewed landings,

3648-614: The Artemis program, formulated in 2017. On 10 August 2023, Russia launched the Luna 25 mission, its first mission to the Moon since 1976. On 20 August, it crashed into the Moon after a guidance error that resulted in an anomalous orbit lowering maneuver. South Korea launched the lunar orbiter Danuri on 4 August 2022, and it arrived at the Moon on 16 December 2022. This is the first phase of South Korea's lunar exploration program, with plans to launch another lunar lander and probe. Pakistan sent

3744-560: The ETS-VI and COMETS missions. In February 2018, JAXA announced a research collaboration with Sony to test a laser communication system from the Kibo module in late 2018. Testing of communication technologies remains to be one of JAXA's key duties in cooperation with NICT . Exploration of the Moon The physical exploration of the Moon began when Luna 2 , a space probe launched by

3840-584: The H-II, rather than an improved development like the H-IIA and H-IIB, which were based on the H-II. The design goal of the H3 is to increase launch capability at a lower cost than the H-IIA and H-IIB. To achieve this, an expander bleed cycle was used for the first time in the world for the first stage of the engine. Japan's first missions beyond Earth orbit were the 1985 Halley's comet observation spacecraft Sakigake (MS-T5) and Suisei (PLANET-A). To prepare for future missions, ISAS tested Earth swing by orbits with

3936-538: The ISAS, and to dramatically improve its launch capability over previous licensed models. To achieve these two goals, a staged combustion cycle was adopted for the first stage engine, the LE-7 . The combination of the liquid hydrogen two-stage combustion cycle first stage engine and solid rocket boosters was carried over to its successor, the H-IIA and H-IIB and became the basic configuration of Japan's liquid fuel launch vehicles for 30 years, from 1994 to 2024. In 2003, JAXA

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4032-677: The Lunar surface before impacting it in July 1964. A number of problems with launch vehicles, ground equipment, and spacecraft electronics plagued the Ranger program and early probe missions in general. These lessons helped in Mariner 2 , the only successful U.S. space probe after Kennedy's famous speech to congress and before his death in November 1963. U.S. success rates improved greatly from Ranger 7 onward. In 1966,

4128-401: The Moon in 1959 by the Soviet Union, and culminated with the landing of the first humans on the Moon in 1969, widely seen around the world as one of the pivotal events of the 20th century and of human history in general. The first artificial object to fly by the Moon was uncrewed Soviet probe Luna 1 on January 4, 1959, and went on to be the first probe to reach a heliocentric orbit around

4224-493: The Moon almost completely lacked maria . The first American probe to fly by the Moon was Pioneer 4 on March 4, 1959, which occurred shortly after Luna 1. It was the only success of eight American probes that first attempted to launch for the Moon. In an effort to compete with these Soviet successes, U.S. President John F. Kennedy proposed the Moon landing in a Special Message to the Congress on Urgent National Needs : Now it

4320-432: The Moon at 15:04 GMT on November 14, 2008. The orbitor was able to detect a widespread presence of water molecules in the lunar soil. This mission was followed up by Chandrayaan-2 , which launched on July 22, 2019, and entered lunar orbit on August 20, 2019. Chandrayaan-2 also carried India's first lander and rover, but due to a last minute technical glitch in the landing system, the spacecraft crash-landed. Chandrayaan-2

4416-467: The Moon in his book Sidereus Nuncius and noted that it was not smooth but had mountains and craters. Later in the 17th century, Giovanni Battista Riccioli and Francesco Maria Grimaldi drew a map of the Moon and gave many craters the names they still have today. On maps, the dark parts of the Moon's surface were called maria (singular mare ) or seas, and the light parts were called terrae or continents. Thomas Harriot , as well as Galilei, drew

4512-425: The Moon on 25 December 2023, and landed on 19 January 2024 at 15:20 UTC. As a result, Japan became the fifth country to soft land on the surface of the Moon. Since then, it has survived 4 lunar days and 3 lunar nights. The European Space Agency launched a small, low-cost lunar orbital probe called SMART 1 on September 27, 2003. SMART 1's primary goal was to take three-dimensional X-ray and infrared imagery of

4608-438: The Moon's surface on 1 June 2024. The ascender was launched back to lunar orbit on 3 June 2024 at 23:38 UTC, carrying samples collected by the lander, and later completed another robotic rendezvous and docking in lunar orbit. The sample container was then transferred to the returner, which landed on Inner Mongolia on 25 June 2024, completing China's far side extraterrestrial sample return mission. India's national space agency,

4704-417: The Moon. In September 1968 the Soviet Union's Zond 5 sent tortoises on a circumlunar mission, followed by turtles aboard Zond 6 in November. On December 24, 1968, the crew of Apollo 8 — Frank Borman , James Lovell and William Anders —became the first human beings to enter lunar orbit and see the far side of the Moon in person. Humans first landed on the Moon on July 20, 1969. The first humans to walk on

4800-588: The Moon. Hevelius's nomenclature, although used in Protestant countries until the eighteenth century, was replaced by the system published in 1651 by the Jesuit astronomer Giovanni Battista Riccioli , who gave the large naked-eye spots the names of seas and the telescopic spots (now called craters) the name of philosophers and astronomers. In 1753, the Croatian Jesuit and astronomer Roger Joseph Boscovich discovered

4896-753: The Prime Minister's Cabinet Office through a new Space Strategy Office. JAXA uses the H-IIA (H "two" A) rocket from the former NASDA body as a medium-lift launch vehicle . JAXA has also developed a new medium-lift vehicle H3 . For smaller launch needs, JAXA uses the Epsilon rocket. For experiments in the upper atmosphere JAXA uses the SS-520 , S-520 , and S-310 sounding rockets . Historical, nowadays retired, JAXA orbital rockets are as follows: Mu rocket family ( M-V ) and H-IIB . Japan launched its first satellite, Ohsumi , in 1970, using ISAS' L-4S rocket. Prior to

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4992-494: The Sun. Few knew that Luna 1 was designed to impact the surface of the Moon. The first probe to impact the surface of the Moon was the Soviet probe Luna 2 , which made a hard landing on September 14, 1959, at 21:02:24 UTC. The far side of the Moon was first photographed on October 7, 1959, by the Soviet probe Luna 3 . Though vague by today's standards, the photos showed that the far side of

5088-496: The USSR accomplished the first soft landings and took the first pictures from the lunar surface during the Luna 9 and Luna 13 missions. The U.S. followed Ranger with the Surveyor program sending seven robotic spacecraft to the surface of the Moon. Five of the seven spacecraft successfully soft-landed, investigating if the regolith (dust) was shallow enough for astronauts to stand on

5184-518: The abandoned Soviet crewed lunar programs included the building of a multipurpose moonbase " Zvezda ", the first detailed project, complete with developed mockups of expedition vehicles and surface modules. In 1990, Japan's JAXA visited the Moon with the Hiten spacecraft, becoming the third country to place an object in orbit around the Moon. The spacecraft released the Hagoromo probe into lunar orbit, but

5280-485: The absence of atmosphere on the Moon. In 1824, Franz von Paula Gruithuisen explained the formation of craters as a result of meteorite strikes. The now disproven possibility that the Moon contains vegetation and is inhabited by selenites was seriously considered by major astronomers of the early modern period even into the first decades of the 19th century. In 1834–1836, Wilhelm Beer and Johann Heinrich Mädler published their four-volume Mappa Selenographica and

5376-469: The book Der Mond in 1837, which firmly established the conclusion that the Moon has no bodies of water nor any appreciable atmosphere. The Cold War -inspired " space race " and " Moon race " between the Soviet Union and the United States of America accelerated with a focus on the Moon. This included many scientifically important firsts, such as the first photographs of the then-unseen far side of

5472-401: The competition. In January 2018 the foundation announced that the prize would go unclaimed as none of the finalist teams would be able to make a launch attempt by the deadline. In August 2016, the US government granted permission to US-based start-up Moon Express to land on the Moon. This marked the first time that a private enterprise was given the right to do so. The decision is regarded as

5568-621: The conception phase, ISAS scientists will see their instruments reaching Jupiter on the ESA-led JUICE (Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer) mission. JUICE is a reformulation of the ESA Ganymede orbiter from the Laplace project. JAXA's contribution includes providing components of the RPWI (Radio & Plasma Wave Investigation), PEP (Particle Environment Package), GALA (GAnymede Laser Altimeter) instruments. JAXA

5664-544: The failure of the Long March 5 launch vehicle . However, after a successful return of flight by the Long March 5 rocket in late December 2019, China targeted its Chang'e 5 sample return mission for late 2020. China completed this mission on December 16, 2020, with the return of approximately 2 kilograms of lunar sample. China sent Chang'e 6 on 3 May 2024, which conducted the first lunar sample return from Apollo Basin on

5760-471: The far side of the Moon. Chang'e 4 deployed the Yutu-2 Moon rover, which subsequently became the current record distance-holder for lunar surface travel. Among other discoveries, Yutu-2 found that the dust at some locations of the far side of the Moon is up to 12 meters deep. China planned to conduct a sample return mission with its Chang'e 5 spacecraft in 2017, but that mission was postponed due to

5856-570: The field of space physics . CALET first published data on half a million electron and positron cosmic ray events in 2017, finding a spectral index of −3.152 ± 0.016 above 30 GeV. Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency ( JAXA ) ( 国立研究開発法人宇宙航空研究開発機構 , Kokuritsu-kenkyū-kaihatsu-hōjin Uchū Kōkū Kenkyū Kaihatsu Kikō , lit.   ' National Research and Development Agency Aerospace Research and Development Organisation ' )

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5952-481: The first lunar sample return from the far side of the Moon. The current goals of lunar exploration across all major space agencies now primarily focus on the continued survey of the lunar surface through various lunar missions in preparation for the eventual establishment of non-temporary human outposts. It is believed by some that the oldest cave paintings from up to 40,000 BP of bulls and geometric shapes, or 20–30,000 year old tally sticks were used to observe

6048-459: The first telescopic representation of the Moon and observed it for several years. His drawings, however, remained unpublished. The first map of the Moon was made by the Belgian cosmographer and astronomer Michael van Langren in 1645. Two years later a much more influential effort was published by Johannes Hevelius . In 1647, Hevelius published Selenographia , the first treatise entirely devoted to

6144-458: The former ISAS's Mu rockets. Instead a H-2A from Tanegashima could launch it. As H-2A is more powerful, SOLAR-C could either be heavier or be stationed at L 1 ( Lagrange point 1). In 1997, Japan launched the HALCA (MUSES-B) mission, the world's first spacecraft dedicated to conduct space VLBI observations of pulsars, among others. To do so, ISAS set up a ground network around the world through international cooperation. The observation part of

6240-769: The goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important in the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish. ...let it be clear that I am asking the Congress and the country to accept a firm commitment to a new course of action—a course which will last for many years and carry very heavy costs... Full text   [REDACTED] Ranger 1 launched in August 1961, just three months after President Kennedy's speech. It would be three more years and six failed Ranger missions until Ranger 7 returned close up photos of

6336-469: The heavens was one cause for his imprisonment and eventual exile, reasoned that the Sun and Moon were both giant spherical rocks, and that the latter reflected the light of the former. Plutarch , in his book On the Face in the Moon's Orb , suggested that the Moon had deep recesses in which the light of the Sun did not reach and that the spots are nothing but the shadows of rivers or deep chasms. He also entertained

6432-523: The highest energy direct measurements of the cosmic ray electron spectrum in order to observe discrete sources of high-energy particle acceleration in our local region of the galaxy . The mission was developed and sponsored by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), involving teams from Japan, Italy, and the United States. It seeks to understand the mechanisms of particle acceleration and propagation of cosmic rays in our galaxy, to identify their sources of acceleration, their elemental composition as

6528-434: The lag time between these interplanetary events and mission planning time, opportunities to gain new knowledge about the cosmos might be lost. To prevent this, JAXA began commencing smaller and faster missions from 2010 onward. In 2012, new legislation extended JAXA's remit from peaceful purposes only to include some military space development, such as missile early warning systems. Political control of JAXA passed from MEXT to

6624-498: The lander will wake up after a few days when sunlight should hit the solar panels. Two rovers, LEV 1 and 2, deployed during hovering just before final landing are working as expected with LEV-1 communicating independently to the ground stations. LEV-1 conducted seven hops over 107 minutes on the lunar surface. Images taken by LEV-2 show that it landed in the wrong attitude with loss of an engine nozzle during descent and even possible sustained damage to lander's Earth bound antenna which

6720-505: The light of the Moon was a reflection of the Sun. Mathematician and astrologer Jing Fang noted the sphericity of the Moon. Shen Kuo of the Song dynasty created an allegory equating the waxing and waning of the Moon to a round ball of reflective silver that, when doused with white powder and viewed from the side, would appear to be a crescent. Indian astronomer Aryabhata stated in his fifth-century text Aryabhatiya that reflected sunlight

6816-461: The lunar surface on 10 June 2009 at 18:25 UTC. JAXA launched its first lunar surface mission SLIM (Smart Lander for Investigating Moon) in 2023. It successfully soft landed on 19 January 2024 at 15:20 UTC, making Japan the 5th country to do so. The main goal of SLIM was to improve the accuracy of spacecraft landing on the Moon and to land a spacecraft within 100 meters of its target, which no spacecraft had achieved before. SLIM landed 55 meters from

6912-616: The lunar surface were Neil Armstrong , commander of the U.S. mission Apollo 11 and his fellow astronaut Buzz Aldrin . The first robot lunar rover to land on the Moon was the Soviet vessel Lunokhod 1 on November 17, 1970, as part of the Lunokhod programme . To date, the last human to stand on the Moon was Eugene Cernan , who as part of the Apollo 17 mission, walked on the Moon in December 1972. Moon rock samples were brought back to Earth by three Luna missions ( Luna 16 , 20 , and 24 ) and

7008-508: The lunar surface, leaving scientific instruments upon the mission's completion and returning lunar samples to Earth. All missions had taken place on the lunar near side until the first soft landing on the far side of the Moon was made by the CNSA robotic spacecraft Chang'e 4 in early 2019, which successfully deployed the Yutu-2 robotic lunar rover. On 25 June 2024, China's Chang'e 6 conducted

7104-536: The lunar surface. SMART 1 entered lunar orbit on November 15, 2004, and continued to make observations until September 3, 2006, when it was intentionally crashed into the lunar surface in order to study the impact plume. China has begun the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program for exploring the Moon and is investigating the prospect of lunar mining , specifically looking for the isotope helium-3 for use as an energy source on Earth. China launched

7200-521: The merger, ISAS used small Mu rocket family of solid-fueled launch vehicles, while NASDA developed larger liquid-fueled launchers. In the beginning, NASDA used licensed American models. The first model of liquid-fueled launch vehicle developed domestically in Japan was the H-II , introduced in 1994. NASDA developed the H-II with two goals in mind: to be able to launch satellites using only its own technology, such as

7296-483: The mission lasted until 2003 and the satellite was retired at the end of 2005. In FY 2006, Japan funded the ASTRO-G as the succeeding mission. ASTRO-G was canceled in 2011. One of the primary duties of the former NASDA body was the testing of new space technologies, mostly in the field of communication. The first test satellite was ETS-I, launched in 1975. However, during the 1990s, NASDA was afflicted by problems surrounding

7392-516: The mission was to collect samples from a small near-Earth asteroid named 25143 Itokawa . The craft rendezvoused with the asteroid in September 2005. It was confirmed that the spacecraft successfully landed on the asteroid in November 2005, after some initial confusion regarding the incoming data. Hayabusa returned to Earth with samples from the asteroid on 13 June 2010. Hayabusa was the world's first spacecraft to return asteroid samples to Earth and

7488-472: The mountains and craters on the lunar surface were among his first observations using it. Human exploration of the moon since Luna 2 has consisted of both crewed and uncrewed missions. NASA 's Apollo program has been the only program to successfully land humans on the Moon , which it did six times on the near side in the 20th century. The first human landing took place in 1969, when the Apollo 11 astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong touched down on

7584-598: The night on the lunar surface while maintaining communication capabilities. At that time it was solar noon on the Moon so the temperature of the communications equipment was extremely high, so communication was terminated after only a short period of time. JAXA is now preparing for resumed operations, once the temperature has fallen sufficiently. The feat of surviving lunar night without a Radioisotope heater unit had only been achieved by some landers in Surveyor Program . Japan's planetary missions have so far been limited to

7680-405: The organization. New head for this group will be Hayabusa project manager Kawaguchi. Active Missions: PLANET-C , IKAROS , Hayabusa2 , BepiColombo , SLIM Under Development: MMX , DESTINY Retired: PLANET-B , SELENE , MUSES-C , LEV-1, LEV-2 Cancelled: LUNAR-A On 9 May 2003, Hayabusa (meaning Peregrine falcon ), was launched from an M-V rocket. The goal of

7776-569: The phases of the Moon, keeping time using the waxing and waning of the Moon's phases . One of the earliest known possible depictions of the Moon is a 3,000 BCE rock carving Orthostat 47 at Knowth , Ireland. Lunar deities like Nanna/Sin featuring crescents are found since the 3rd millenium BCE. Though the oldest found and identified astronomical depiction of the Moon is the Nebra sky disc from c.  1800–1600 BCE . The ancient Greek philosopher Anaxagoras , whose non-religious view of

7872-471: The possibility that the Moon was inhabited. Aristarchus attempted to compute the Moon's size and distance from Earth, although his estimated distance of 20 times Earth's radius (which had been accurately determined by his contemporary Eratosthenes ) proved to be about a third the actual average distance. Chinese philosophers of the Han dynasty believed the Moon to be energy equated to qi but recognized that

7968-505: The solar sail did not deploy fully. ISAS tested a solar sail again as a sub payload of the SOLAR-B launch at 23 September 2006, but contact with the probe was lost. The IKAROS solar sail was launched in May 2010 and successfully demonstrated solar sail technology in July. This made IKAROS the world's first spacecraft to successfully demonstrate solar sail technology in interplanetary space. The goal

8064-519: The space station and sent to a ground station at Waseda University for analyses. CALET may also yield evidence of rare interactions between matter and dark matter by working in synergy with the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) – also aboard the ISS – that is looking at positrons and antiprotons to identify dark matter. Observations will be carried out more than 5 years. CALET contains

8160-401: The target landing site, and JAXA announced that it was the world's first successful "pinpoint landing. Although it landed successfully, it landed with the solar panels oriented westwards, facing away from the Sun at the start of lunar day , thereby failing to generate enough power. The lander operated on internal battery power, which was fully drained that day. The mission's operators hope that

8256-483: The time. In November 2003, JAXA's first launch after its inauguration, H-IIA No. 6, failed, but all other H-IIA launches were successful, and as of February 2024, the H-IIA had successfully launched 47 of its 48 launches. JAXA plans to end H-IIA operations with H-IIA Flight No. 50 and retire it by March 2025. JAXA operated the H-IIB , an upgraded version of the H-IIA, from September 2009 to May 2020 and successfully launched

8352-464: The transmitter failed, thereby preventing further scientific use of the spacecraft. In September 2007, Japan launched the SELENE spacecraft, with the objectives "to obtain scientific data of the lunar origin and evolution and to develop the technology for the future lunar exploration", according to the JAXA official website. In 2023, Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) is a lunar lander mission of

8448-489: The world's first spacecraft to make a round trip to a celestial body farther from Earth than the Moon. Hayabusa2 was launched in 2014 and returned samples from asteroid 162173 Ryugu to Earth in 2020. After Hiten in 1990, JAXA planned a lunar penetrator mission called LUNAR-A but after delays due to technical problems, the project was terminated in January 2007. The seismometer penetrator design for LUNAR-A may be reused in

8544-541: The year 2000 the launch of ISAS's X-ray observation satellite, ASTRO-E failed (as it failed at launch it never received a proper name). Then on 10 July 2005, JAXA was finally able to launch a new X-ray astronomy mission named Suzaku (ASTRO-EII). This launch was important for JAXA, because in the five years since the launch failure of the original ASTRO-E satellite, Japan was without an x-ray telescope . Three instruments were included in this satellite: an X-ray spectrometer (XRS), an X-ray imaging spectrometer (XIS), and

8640-550: Was followed by Chandrayaan-3 , the third lunar exploration mission by the Indian Space Research Organisation. It also carried the lander named Vikram and the rover named Pragyan , and achieved the country's first soft landing near the south polar region of the Moon. The Ballistic Missile Defense Organization and NASA launched the Clementine mission in 1994, and Lunar Prospector in 1998. NASA launched

8736-530: Was formed by merging Japan's three space agencies to streamline Japan's space program, and JAXA took over operations of the H-IIA liquid-fueled launch vehicle, the M-V solid-fuel launch vehicle, and several observation rockets from each agency. The H-IIA is a launch vehicle that improved reliability while reducing costs by making significant improvements to the H-II, and the M-V was the world's largest solid-fuel launch vehicle at

8832-521: Was launched as the successor to Suzaku, which completed its mission a year before. Japan's solar astronomy started in the early 1980s with the launch of the Hinotori (ASTRO-A) X-ray mission. The Hinode (SOLAR-B) spacecraft, the follow-on to the joint Japan/US/UK Yohkoh (SOLAR-A) spacecraft, was launched on 23 September 2006 by JAXA. A SOLAR-C can be expected sometime after 2020. However no details are worked out yet other than it will not be launched with

8928-424: Was launched by a H-2A launch vehicle. On 7 December 2010, Akatsuki was unable to complete its Venus orbit insertion maneuver. Akatsuki finally entered Venus orbit on 7 December 2015, making it the first Japanese spacecraft to orbit another planet, sixteen years after the originally planned orbital insertion of Nozomi. One of Akatsuki's main goal is to uncover the mechanism behind Venus atmosphere's super-rotation ,

9024-519: Was mostly active in the field of communication satellite technology. However, since the satellite market of Japan is completely open, the first time a Japanese company won a contract for a civilian communication satellite was in 2005. Another prime focus of the NASDA body is Earth climate observation. NASDA also trained the Japanese astronauts who flew with the US Space Shuttles . The Basic Space Law

9120-801: Was passed in 2008, and the jurisdictional authority of JAXA moved from MEXT to the Strategic Headquarters for Space Development (SHSD) in the Cabinet , led by the Prime Minister . In 2016, the National Space Policy Secretariat (NSPS) was set up by the Cabinet. JAXA was awarded the Space Foundation 's John L. "Jack" Swigert Jr., Award for Space Exploration in 2008. Planning interplanetary research missions can take many years. Due to

9216-402: Was put into sleep mode due to the approaching harsh lunar night where temperatures reach −120 °C (−184 °F). SLIM was expected to operate only for one lunar daylight period, which lasts for 14 Earth days, and the on-board electronics were not designed to withstand the nighttime temperatures on the Moon. On 25 February 2024, JAXA sent wake-up calls and found SLIM had successfully survived

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