A Japanese rocket blasted off early yesterday and successfully launched a Venus probe and a kite-shaped “space yacht” designed to float through the cosmos using only the power of the sun.
The launch vehicle, the H-IIA rocket, took off from the Tanegashima space center in southern Japan on schedule at 6:58am, three days after its original launch was postponed by bad weather.
Live footage on the Web site of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) showed the rocket disappear into the sky.
“It was an almost perfect launch,” Teruaki Kawai, a space business manager with the rocket’s manufacturer, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, told a televised press conference from Tanegashima.
It was the 11th straight launch success for the H-IIA, Japan’s primary space vehicle, after a rocket was forced to self-destruct after blastoff in 2003 when one of its boosters failed to disengage from the main body.
The rocket carried the experimental “Ikaros” — an acronym for Interplanetary Kite-craft Accelerated by Radiation of the Sun — designed to be propelled by the pressure of sunlight particles.
Similar to an ocean yacht pushed by wind, the device has a square, ultra-thin and flexible sail, measuring 14m by 14m, that will be driven through space as it is pelted by solar particles.
The sail, only a fraction of the thickness of a human hair, is also partly coated with thin-film solar cells to generate electricity.
The name of the spacecraft alludes to Icarus, the figure from Greek mythology who flew too close to the sun. The space yacht, however, is headed in the direction of Venus.
Ikaros, which cost ¥1.5 billion (US$16 million) to develop, will be the first use of the propellant-free technology in deep space, although it has been tested in orbit around the Earth before.
“This idea of a solar sail was born some 100 years ago, as we often find it in science fiction novels, but it has not been realized to date,” JAXA says on its Web site. “If we can verify this navigation technology through the Ikaros, it will mark the first spectacular achievement of its kind in the world.”
The rocket also released the Planet-C Venus Climate Orbiter, nicknamed Akatsuki, which means “Dawn” in Japanese.
Japan’s first Venus probe is a box-shaped golden satellite, fitted with two paddle-shaped solar panels, that is set to arrive at Venus in about six months.
“I’m full of joy after the probe was put into the right orbit,” Masato Nakamura, the JAXA chief scientist in charge of Akatsuki development, said at the press conference.
Venus is similar in size and age to Earth, but has a far more hostile climate, with temperatures around 460ºC and large amounts of carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas on Earth.
Scientists believe a probe of the climate of Venus will help them deepen their understanding of the formation of the Earth’s environment and its future.
The probe will work closely with the European Space Agency’s “Venus Express.”
Fitted with five cameras, its mission is to peer through the planet’s thick layer of sulphuric acid clouds to monitor the meteorology of Venus, search for possible lightning and scan its crust for active volcanoes.
It will observe the planet in an elliptical orbit, from a distance of between 300km and 80,000km.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS