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Japan Launches Lunar Orbiter Mission
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.'"
Interesting choice of name. Selene was a lunar deity and is the Greek word for the moon.
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Dude, there were no Maan in it, the thing's correct. Stop nitpicking!
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
Perhaps 'unmaanned' refers to the fact that the probe does not actually land on the Maan, but just orbits it. ;)
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.
The rocket carrying the three-metric ton orbiter...
Are you sure about that?
Developers: We can use your help.
...is that the spacecraft is in the shape of a giant robot, and that, upon achieving lunar orbit, it will disassemble itself into three smaller robots, a moon buggy, a six-wheeler truck, and a mouse-class pokemon carrying a katana.
They will awaken Gogirra!!
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Kaguya was also the name of a character in Okami who goes off into space in a giant bamboo stalk.
Coincidence?
I think not.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
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
About six years ago Japan tried to send a probe to Mars. It MISSED the plant so, they sent around the solar system to try to hit Mars again. When it finally got there, it had run out of fuel and died.
The had a little better luck with a comet probe. It made it there. I was supposed to retrieve samples. They think it might have gotten some. But the probe died on the way back to Earth.
Good luck next time!
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!
Me. It's always too crowded at weekends.
This mission is just a warmup. Japan's future plans include a lunar mission in 2022 in which gigantic teflon and mylar sheets will be installed at strategic locations extending upward perpendicular to the surface. Upon completion of the complex in 2024, observers on Earth will see that the moon has been transformed into a giant Hello Kitty.
The difference between the two tons (or tonnes if you must) is so small that to qualify whether you're using one or the other is nit-picking[1]. As it is, unless the weight of the spacecraft is an exact number of tons, the journalistic rounding-off of the weight far exceeds this small difference in definitions.
[1]unless of course you're using the weight in orbital mechanics calculations, in which case you'll need better accruacy than the 1 significant digit reported here.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
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.