The Japanese large-scale lunar orbiting mission, SELENE (SELenological and ENgineering Explorer), is planned to be launched in FY2006 (tentative) by H-IIA launch vehicle. The SELENE has 15 onboard mission instruments and will produce global maps of various selenological informations such as elemental abundance, topography, gravity field, magnetic field of the Moon. And it will demonstrate the fundamental technologies required in the future lunar exploration, such as lunar polar orbit injection, 3-axis attitude stabilization / orbit controls, and heat controls. In addition, SELENE has the High Definition Television camera (HDTV) to get clear movie of the rising Earth from the lunar horizon for public affair mission. SELENE is now under sustaining design phase. The flight model components were manufactured, and the interface tests between the bus-system and the mission instruments were completed by the end of March 2004. As the successor of SELENE, JAXA is studying the mission scenario for Japanese future lunar exploration, including the development of the essential technologies, the lunar science and the human activities on the moon.
展开▼
