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Japan Launches Lunar Orbiter Mission

Posted by Zonk on from the bring-us-back-something-nice dept.

Sooner Boomer writes "In a historic event, Japan today launched its first lunar probe. The mission is nicknamed Kaguya after a fairy-tale princess from Japanese myth. The news media is calling it the 'latest move in a new race with China, India and the United States' to explore the moon (don't forget Google). From the article: 'The rocket carrying the three-metric ton orbiter took off into blue skies, leaving a huge trail of vapor over the tiny island of Tanegashima, about 1,000 km (620 miles) south of Tokyo, at 10:31 a.m. (9:31 p.m. EDT) as it headed out over the Pacific Ocean. The mission consists of a main orbiter and two baby satellites equipped with 14 observation instruments designed to examine surface terrain, gravity and other features for clues on the origin and evolution of the moon. China has plans to launch an orbiter later this year, with unmanned rover lander mission scheduled for 2010. India and the US also have orbiter missions scheduled for next year.'"

6 of 121 comments (clear)

  1. Thank God! by Slad · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I can't wait for these lunar satellites to be in position. I have a $50 bet with a "nut case" friend of mine that NASA's moon landing was real (he is a real conspiracy theorist - I blame drugs). Once these babies are in position, they'll be able to take nice pictures of the Apollo mission sites.

    --
    I am Slad.
    1. Re:Thank God! by UbuntuDupe · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The Soviet Union was able to view the landing site with *their* satellites in 1969. If he's not going to be persuaded by the SU's golden chance to embarass the USA if the landings were faked, I don't think this would make a difference.

      --
      Apology to Ubuntu forum.
  2. Is everyone playing nice? by paiute · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Is the information from all these various probes being shared or is each nation building up its own little pool of data?

    --
    If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
    1. Re:Is everyone playing nice? by lordofthechia · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Is the information from all these various probes being shared God! Korea, we already said NO! You can't borrow our notes, God!

      But seriously, I was wondering the same thing, how are there experiments gonna vary from ours (if at all) considering the near half century technology gap between automated experiment equipment then and now.
      --
      Georgia Tech, the leader in Chia(tm) technology.
  3. Isn't this kinda sad? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Hate to get a weepy and jingoist, but isn't this just kinda pathetic? We sent people there almost 40 years ago, fer Christ's sake, and now we're in a "race" to send orbiters around it?

    We should already have moon-based lasers to shoot down them godless foreign spy satellites before they enter orbit. We should own that goddamned moon, complete with a Disneyland! And blackjack! And hookers!

    In fact, forget the moon!

  4. Why the moon-crazy? by metrometro · · Score: 2, Interesting

    OK, call me no fun at all, but why the hell is anyone committing major resources to getting to the moon? As far as I understand, we're pretty confident it's a big lump of sand. No real advantage of being there vs being in orbit. Nice place for telescopes maybe, but so is high Earth orbit or a Legrange point. Other than a playpen for new technology, what's the draw? Mars at least has some interesting geology and the whole maybe-there's-microbes thing. But the moon? Lunacy! Why doesn't Google give an X-prize for orbiting a next-generation Hubble? Same industry-boosting tech trickle down, more or less, and then we get some science from it. A 10-pound rover with a Nikon on it doesn't really light my fire.