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Japanâs rough year in space: Mars probe to crash
After losing one or two satellites to solar flares last month, it looks like Japan has not had a good year in space. Edited for brevity.Japanâs snake-bit space probe to Mars, the Nozomi (âHopeâ) mission, seems to have run out of hope and out of luck, the Tokyo newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun reported Thursday. Quoting Japanese space officials, the newspaper said the probe appeared to be incapable of entering a survey orbit as planned on Dec. 14. Unless it is steered aside, the probe will crash onto the planet and possibly contaminate it with earthly microbes. Nozomi blasted off on July 4, 1998, and was supposed to reach Mars by the end of the following year. On board were a camera and several other instruments to study the Martian atmosphere from orbit. Once in space, the craft remained in an elongated Earth orbit as it stored up energy through several swing-by maneuvers with the moon. On Dec. 20, 1998, in the midst a high-speed dash to within 600 miles (960 kilometers) of Earth, Nozomi fired its main engine to thrust itself towards Mars. But something went wrong with the rocket firing, and the probe wound up so far off track that two corrective burns had to be made the next day. By the time the probe was back on its proper course, its remaining fuel wasnât enough to brake itself into the desired survey orbit once it arrived at Mars. More at link--this has been years in the making. Posted by: Dar 2003-11-14 |
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