The main engine of the Akatsuki has been declared dead ever since, however the robotic spacecraft will fire its thrusters for a 20 minute burn on December 7, 7:00 A.M. Japan time. The agency had to wait five years for Akatsuki to orbit the Sun and catch up with Venus again, and it also needed an alternative way to propel the spacecraft into the planet’s orbit.
Advertisement
On December 6, 2010, Akatsuki, a platform created to monitor the weather systems on Venus and sample its atmosphere, was supposed to have fired its engines for 12 minutes and settled into orbit around the solar system’s second planet.
The second and final attempt took place at 6:51 p.m. ET Sunday when the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) performed an engine thrust operation. “We are now measuring and calculating its orbit after the operation”. While the maneuvers appear to have done no harm to the probe, it will be another couple of days before JAXA has data to tell if Akatsuki is actually in orbit.
Sanjay Limaye from the University of Wisconsin said, “It is in orbit”. Even the best-case scenario would see Akatsuki travel a much more stretched-out orbit around Venus than originally planned.
“It’s been quite a long period of waiting”, says Masato Nakamura, JAXA project manager at the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science in Sagamihara.
Carrying six kinds of statement gear, Akatsuki is created to research the thick clouds shrouding Venus in three dimensions and the way its robust winds, estimated to be quicker than 360 kph, trigger an atmospheric phenomenon referred to as tremendous-rotation, through which the environment rotates a lot quicker than the planet.
Advertisement
Japan attempted its first Mars probe with Nozomi in 2003 and failed. Originally, the spacecraft’s orbit was meant to range from 186 to 49,700 miles above Venus and last for 30 hours. Lucky for the team behind Akatsuki, it became apparent a rare second chance would avail itself in the future; unfortunately, this second chance was five years away.
