The AKARI, Japanese infrared astronomical satellite, is a 68.5 cm cooled telescope with two focal-plane instruments providing continuous sky scan at six wavelength bands in mid- and far-infrared. The instruments also have capabilities of imaging and spectroscopy in the wavelength range 2-180 μm in the pointing observations occasionally inserted into the continuous survey. AKARI was launched on 21st Feb. 2006, and has performed the all-sky survey as well as 5380 pointing observations until the liquid helium exhaustion on 26th Aug. 2007. The all sky survey covers more than 90 percent of the entire sky with higher spatial resolutions and sensitivities than the IRAS. First version of the infrared source catalogue will be released in 2009. Here we report the overview of the mission, highlights on the scientific results as well as the performance of the focal-plane instruments. We also present the observation plan with the near infrared camera during the post-helium mission phase started in June 2008.
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