Hit
| Hit | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Hiten spacecraft |
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| NSSDC ID | 1990-007A | ||||||||||||
| Mission goal | Earth moon | ||||||||||||
| Client | ISAS | ||||||||||||
| Launcher | Mu-3S2 | ||||||||||||
| construction | |||||||||||||
| Takeoff mass | 200 kg (including fuel) | ||||||||||||
| Course of the mission | |||||||||||||
| Start date | January 24, 1990 | ||||||||||||
| launch pad | Uchinoura Space Center | ||||||||||||
| End date | May 14, 1994 | ||||||||||||
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Hiten ( Japanese 第 13 号 科学 衛星 ひ て ん (MUSES-A) , Dai-13-gō kakaku eisei Hiten (Muses-A) , German "science satellite No. 13 Hiten (Muses-A)") was a Japanese space probe that was active near the Earth's moon between 1990 and 1993 .
mission
In Hiten it was a technology experiment. The probe only carried an S-band transponder as a payload. The scientific mission was limited to measuring dust particles between the earth and the moon. Hiten was supposed to first fly past the moon from an earth orbit and deploy the daughter probe Hagoromo ( は ご ろ も ) there. Later on, Hiten himself was put into orbit around the moon using a swing-by maneuver on Earth .
Before launch, Hiten was called Muses-A and was launched into space on a Mu-3S2 launcher . The probe weighed 200 kg.
course
- Hiten launched into orbit around Earth on January 24, 1990.
- The first close flyby to the moon took place on March 19, 1990. The 12 kg daughter probe Hagoromo was exposed. Hagoromo went into orbit around the moon. Contact with this lunar satellite was lost on the same day.
- After the swing-by maneuver on Earth, Hiten also reached orbit around the Earth's moon on February 15, 1992 .
- The probe hit the moon on April 10, 1993.
Result
The Hiten mission was by and large rated as successful by the Japanese, although the probe's transponder failed on February 21, 1990 and communication with Hagoromo did not work. Detailed exploration of the moon by Japan had been announced with the LUNAR-A mission for 1997 and SELENE for 2007. However, the development of the penetrators for Lunar-A turned out to be more difficult than expected. For this reason, the start of the probe has been postponed several times. The mother ship itself was put into storage. At the beginning of 2007 the launch was completely abandoned due to the deterioration of the probe. Japan plans to integrate the developed penetrators into other missions. SELENE was launched in 2007.