A Japanese spacecraft
touted to be the largest aimed at the moon since NASA's Apollo era rocketed
into space late Thursday on an ambitious mission to study the origins of
Earth's nearest neighbor.
The three-ton
Kaguya lunar orbiter rode its H-2A rocket moonward at about 9:31 p.m. EDT
(0131 Sept. 13 GMT), though it was Friday morning at Japan's island-based Tanegashima
Space Center launch site. The probe was slated to circle the Earth twice before
beginning a five-day trek to the moon, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
(JAXA) has said.
Formally known
as SELENE, short for SELenological and ENgineering Explorer, Kaguya carries 14
science instruments and two small microsatellites to make detailed maps of the
moon's surface, probe its interior and study the lunar gravitational field.
"All
of the data gathered by Kaguya will bring us new scientific knowledge for
research of the origin and evolution of the moon," JAXA's SELENE project
manager Yoshisada Takizawa has said on the agency's Web site.
Kaguya is
named after Kaguya-hime, a moon princess in a well-known Japanese folktale, and
is carrying names and messages from people on Earth as part of JAXA's
"Wish Upon the Moon" campaign. The probe is also equipped with a
high-definition camera that is designed to record still and video images of the
Earth as it rises
above the lunar surface.
"The
moon is one of the favorite planetary bodies for Japanese," Shinichi
Sobue, a JAXA Kaguya science coordinator and spokesperson, told SPACE.com.
"I think the Japanese people are looking forward to this, and especially
to see the Earth rising from the moon."
Kaguya's 55
billion-yen (about $480 million) mission is slated to run about one year, Sobue
said. The mission's launch comes after eight years of development and a series
of delays, most recently due to improperly
installed condensers on Kaguya's small satellite passengers. Bad weather at
the probe's launch site also prevented a planned Wednesday night liftoff, JAXA
said.
While Kaguya
is not Japan's first unmanned lunar mission, it is the country's most
ambitious. In 1990, Japan launched the Hiten spacecraft to make a series of lunar
flybys, deploy a small Hagamordo satellite near the moon and enter lunar orbit.
Hiten was intentionally crashed into the moon in 1993.
Sobue said
Hiten's flight primary served as a technology test for future spacecraft,
making Kaguya Japan's first all-science mission to the moon. JAXA will share the
probe's gravity field measurements with NASA researchers in the U.S. - who are
preparing to fly their own Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) to fly next year
- and is looking ahead to possible manned moon expeditions in the future, Sobue
added.
"[JAXA]
is exploring the possibilities to perform manned activities on the moon and to
utilize the moon for future space development activities," Takizawa has
said in past statements.
Sobue added
that Kaguya's SELENE effort is part of JAXA's larger space exploration
initiative to participate in international manned lunar missions and launch an
unmanned Japanese moon lander by 2010.
"We hope
that, by using our SELENE data, we'll find a good place for a future lunar landing,"
Sobue said.
Kaguya is
the first of a series of new moon missions by different countries to fly over
the next two years. China's Chang'e-1
lunar orbiter is slated to fly sometime later this year, while NASA's LRO
and India's Chandrayaan-1 are due to lift off in 2008.
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