Japan, China To Extend Successful Lunar Missions

[doublehelix]

<font face="verdana" size="2" color="#333333"><strong>Japan, China To Extend Successful Lunar Missions</strong></font><br /><br /><font face="verdana" size="1" color="#003366"><strong>By Peter B. De Selding</strong></font><br /><font face="verdana" size="1" color="#003366"><strong>Space News Staff Writer </strong></font><br /><br /><font face="verdana" size="1" color="#003366"> <font face="arial"> <div class="Section1"> <span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> <p class="MsoPlainText"><font color="#000000"><span style="font-family:Arial">Japanese and Chinese mission managers said their separate lunar orbiters, now halfway through yearlong missions, have performed flawlessly and are likely to be extended.</span></font></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><font color="#000000"><span style="font-family:Arial">In presentations here March 26 to a meeting of the International Astronautical Federation, managers of Japan's Kaguya and China's Chang'e-1 programs said both programs are meeting their science objectives and their goals as pathfinders for future lunar landers in the middle of the next decade.</span></font></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><font color="#000000"><span style="font-family:Arial">Susumu Sasaki, Kaguya project scientist at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, JAXA, said both the main satellite and two smaller spacecraft jettisoned in lunar orbit for data-relay and gravity-field measurements have performed without a hitch.</span></font></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><font color="#000000"><span style="font-family:Arial">Launched in September aboard a Japanese H-2A rocket on a yearlong mission, Kaguya and the two companion satellites are almost certain to have their mission extended by six months, Sasaki said. "The debate now is over lunar surface, or to leave it at around 100 kilometers," he said.</span></font></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><font color="#000000"><span style="font-family:Arial">The data-relay satellite, Okina, is in an orbit with an apogee of 2,400 kilometers and a perigee of 100 kilometers. The Ouna gravity-field measurement satellite is in a 100-kilometer circular orbit inclined at 90 degrees, taking it over the lunar poles, as is the case with Kaguya. Kaguya weighed about 3,000 kilograms at launch. The two companion satellites weigh 50 kilograms each.</span></font></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><font color="#000000"><span style="font-family:Arial">The Kaguya satellite carries a radar sounder capable of taking images up to 5,000 meters below the lunar surface with a resolution of 100 meters. The Okina data-relay satellite is used to beam Kaguya results to ground stations when Kaguya's orbit takes it over the far side of the Moon relative to Earth.</span></font></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span style="font-family:Arial"><font color="#000000">The mission also includes two high-definition cameras that have returned crystal-clear pictures of th</font>e lunar surface.</span></p><p class="MsoPlainText">[more]&nbsp;</p></span></div></font></font> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#3366ff">doublehelix, Community Manager<br />Imaginova </font></p> </div>