Japanese spacecraft misses orbit, overshoots Venus

Wed, 08 Dec 2010

Tokyo - A Japanese space probe failed to enter orbit around Venus Wednesday and passed the planet, Japan's space agency said.

"I'm sorry that we failed to meet the expectations of the public," Masato Nakamura, a project manager of the probe's two-year mission, told a news conference at a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) facility near Tokyo.If the probe, named Akatsuki, which means "dawn," had succeeded in entering orbit, it would have been the first that Japan had placed into orbit around another planet.

An earlier Japanese mission between 1998 and 2003 to put a probe into orbit around Mars also ended in failure.

Communication with Akatsuki broke down early Tuesday, shortly after the probe started to slow down to go into orbit around Venus.

The engine probably stalled two to three minutes after it went into reverse thrust, Kyodo News reported, citing JAXA.

When communications were restored, the probe had failed to slow down enough to be caught by Venus' gravity, and had continued on its own solar orbit.

The failure was "extremely regrettable, as it comes at a time when the public has started to show greater support for the country's space development programs after the success of (the asteroid explorer) Hayabusa," Junjiro Onoda, head of the JAXA institute, was quoted by Kyodo as saying.

But Akatsuki will have another chance in six years' time, when it is set to cross paths with Venus again, the agency said.

"Hopefully speaking, I think the likelihood (of success in six years) is high," Nakamura said.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/357149,misses-orbit-overshoots-venus.html.