The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) successfully launched an HII-A rocket today carrying the Venus Climate Orbiter "AKATSUKI" (PLANET-C) and an innovative solar sail demonstrator satellite at 6:58:22 a.m. on May 21, 2010 (Japan Standard Time, JST) from the Tanegashima Space Center in Southern Japan. The launch was a complete success for the 17th flight of Japan's homegrown HII-A launch vehicle.
AKATSUKI MISSION WEBSITE IKAROS MISSION WEBSITE DOCUMENTS LAUNCH PLAN OF VCO (PLANET-C) & SMALL SECONDARY SATELLITES • READ (PDF) VENUS CLIMATE ORBITER "AKATSUKI" • READ (PDF) SMALL SOLAR POWER SAIL DEMONSTRATOR "IKAROS" • READ (PDF) PUBLIC OFFERING FOR SMALL SECONDARY SATELLITE LAUNCH • READ (PDF) AKATSUKI PAMPHLET • READ (PDF) IKAROS PAMPHLET • READ (PDF) H-IIA PAMPHLET • READ (PDF) FREE VIDEO HII-A F-17 LIFTS OFF WITH AKATSUKI AND IKAROS • WATCH | DOWNLOAD At the time of the launch, the weather was light cloudiness, a wind speed was 2.4 meters/second from the north-north-east, and the temperature was 21.2 degrees Celsius. The launch vehicle flew smoothly, and, at about 27 minutes and 29 seconds after liftoff, the separation of the AKATSUKI was confirmed. IKAROS was released a short time later. "We would like to express our profound appreciation for the cooperation and support of all related personnel and organizations that helped contribute to the successful launch of the H-IIA F17," JAXA officials said in a statement released following today's launch. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) acquired the signal transmitted from the IKAROS at the Usuda Deep Space Station and confirmed its solar power generation and stable posture, and established communications. The Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) received the signal transmitted from the Venus Climate Orbiter "AKATSUKI" at the Uchinoura Space Center at 4:40 p.m. on May 21, 2010 (Japan Standard Time, JST), and confirmed that the scheduled sequence of events including the solar array paddle deployment and sun acquisition were successfully performed. AKATSUKI will undergo several months of in-space checkouts of the onboard equipment before being injected into orbit around Venus in early December "We would like to express our profound appreciation for the cooperation and support of all related personnel and organizations that helped contribute to the successful launch and tracking and control operations of the AKATSUKI," said the statement from JAXA. AKATSUKI (PLANET-C) is the next planetary exploration project for the Martian orbiter NOZOMI. This project's main purpose is to elucidate the mysteries of the Venusian atmosphere. The probe vehicle of AKATSUKI will enter an elliptical orbit, 300 to 80,000 km away from Venus's surface. This wide variation in distance will enable comprehensive observations of the planet's meteorological phenomena and of its surface, as well as observations of the atmospheric particles escaping from Venus into space. It will also be possible to take close-up photos of Venus, and to observe the storm winds that blow on the Venusian surface, at speeds that reach 100 m a second - 60 times the speed at which Venus rotates. This phenomenon remains the biggest mystery of Venus, as it cannot be explained meteorologically. AKATSUKI will employ infrared light to observe and elucidate the mysteries surrounding the atmosphere under the clouds and the conditions on the planet's surface. In addition, it will confirm the presence of active volcanoes and thunder. The IKAROS (Interplanetary Kite-craft Accelerated by Radiation Of the Sun) mission aims at verifying that a spacecraft can fly only by solar powered sail, and that thin film solar cells can generate power. A Solar Sail is a space ship that gathers sunlight as propulsion by means of a large membrane. A solar sail can move forward without consuming propellant as long as it can generate enough energy from sunlight. This idea was born some 100 years ago, but it had lots of technical hurdles such as the appropriate material and deployment method for the sail. A Solar "Power" Sail gets electricity from thin film solar cells on the membrane in addition to acceleration by solar radiation. What's more, if the ion-propulsion engines with a high specific impulse are driven by such solar cells, they can become a "hybrid" engine that is combined with photon acceleration to realize fuel-effective and flexible missions. The sail of the IKAROS is a huge square some 20 meters in a diagonal line, as thin as 0.0075 mm, and made of polyimide resin. On the membrane of the sail, thin film solar cells are attached as well as an attitude control device and scientific observation sensors. This thin and light solar sail membrane will be deployed using the centrifugal force of spinning the main body of the IKAROS before its tension is set. The deployment is in two stages. The first stage is carried out quasi-statically by the onboard deployment mechanism on the side of the main body. The second stage is the dynamic deployment. As this deployment method does not require a strut such as a boom, it can contribute to making it lighter and thus can be applied for a larger membrane. A second solar sail mission will take place in the late 2010s. It will involve a medium-sized solar power sail with a diameter of 50m, and will have integrated ion-propulsion engines. The destinations of the spacecraft will be Jupiter and the Trojan asteroids.
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