* Astronomy

Blobrana · L

RE: Hiten spacecraft

Blobrana · L

On February 15, 1993, the Hiten Spacecraft was placed into a permanent lunar orbit, where it remained until it was deliberately crashed into the lunar surface on April 10, 1993.

Blobrana · L

Hiten (originally called Muses-A) was an ISAS (Japanese Space Agency) Earth orbiting satellite designed primarily to test and verify technologies for future lunar and planetary missions. The spacecraft carried a small satellite named Hagoromo which was released in the vicinity of the Moon. Hiten itself was put into a highly elliptical Earth orbit which passed by the Moon ten times during the mission, which ended when Hiten was intentionally crashed into the Moon on 10 April 1993.
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Blobrana · L

The Hiten spacecraft (known before launch as Muses-A), built by the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science of Japan, was launched on January 24, 1990. It was Japan's first lunar probe, the first robotic lunar probe since the Soviet Union's Luna 24 in 1976, and the first lunar probe launched by a country other than Soviet Union or the United States.

Hiten successfully demonstrated aerobraking technique on March 19 and 30, 1991. This was the first aerobraking maneuver by a deep space probe.
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