JAXA is really starting to do its thing. The Japan Aero Space program is contributing to the knowledge of space flight and to the origins of our solar system. Not only has Japan sent the world’s first woman astronaut into space, it also gave rise to and allowed the first international astronaut to fly on a Russian Soyuz mission. […]
JAXA Kaguya Lunar Mission Part 2
This is the second installment on the JAXA Kaguya Lunar Orbiter mission and I offer a detailed summary of its important mission accomplishments. Have a look back at my July 5th posting on both the JAXA Kaguya and Hayabusa missions for the background on this. A critical fact carried over from the NASA Apollo missions of 1967 […]
Kaguya Part 1 ( かぐや ) Hayabusa ( はやぶさ )
Last month, you must have heard news about the Hayabusa space probe which was sent by the Japan Space Agency (JAXA) to drill into the near-Earth asteroid Itokawa and bring back samples. This successful and important mission will tell us a lot about how the Solar System was formed and the likelihood that we may someday find […]