"true, this would indicate that the neutron results from Lunar Prospector were primarily from hydrogen in forms other than ice, such as trapped hydrogen molecules or organics. Nevertheless, the interpretation of the Arecibo data do not exclude the possibility of water ice in permanently shadowed craters. In June 2009, NASA's ""Deep Impact"" spacecraft, now redesignated EPOXI, made further confirmatory bound hydrogen measurements during another lunar flyby. As part of its lunar mapping programme, Japan's Kaguya probe, launched in September 2007 for a 19-month mission, carried out gamma ray spectrometry observations from orbit that can measure the abundances of various elements"
"Engineering Explorer), nicknamed Kaguya after a lunar princess in the ancient Japanese folklore ""The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter"", is the second Japanese mission to the Moon. Launched in September 2007, it was ""the largest lunar mission since the Apollo program"". The mission featured three separate space craft, the main orbiter (Kaguya), the small relay satellite (Okina), and the VLBI satellite (Ouna). SELENE-2, also known as Kaguya-2, formerly known as SELENE-B, is the follow-on mission to Kaguya. SELENE-2 will consist from one large lander, which will have a small-sized rover, and if possible, will also have some penetrators inherited from"
"The seismometer penetrator design for LUNAR-A may be reused in a future mission. On 14 September 2007, JAXA succeeded in launching the lunar orbit explorer ""Kaguya"", also known as SELENE (costing 55 billion yen including launch vehicle), the largest such mission since the Apollo program, on an H-2A rocket. Its mission is to gather data on the moon's origin and evolution. It entered lunar orbit on 4 October 2007. After 1 year and 8 months it impacted the lunar surface on 10 June 2009 at 18:25 UTC. JAXA plans to launch its first lunar surface mission, SLIM (Smart Lander for"
"SELENE-2 SELENE-2 , or the Selenological and Engineering Explorer 2, is a cancelled Japanese robotic mission to the Moon that would have included an orbiter, a lander and a rover. It was intended as a successor to the 2007 SELENE (Kaguya) lunar orbiter. The lander would have targeted lava tubes and other permanently shadowed areas, which function as cold trap volatiles such as water. Water ice could be processed by future missions to produce spacecraft propellant (LOX/H). The orbiter would have a mass of 700 kg. The lander would have a mass of 1,000 kg, and would be able to"
"31 July 1999, when the orbiter was deliberately crashed into a crater near the lunar south pole after the presence of water ice was successfully detected. Launched 27 September 2003, 23:14 UTC from the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guiana. At the end of its mission, the ESA lunar orbiter SMART-1 performed a controlled crash into the Moon, at about 2 km/s. The time of the crash was 3 September 2006, at 5:42 UTC. SELENE or ""Kaguya"" was launched on 14 September 2007. After successfully orbiting the Moon for a year and eight months, the main orbiter was instructed"
"deliver up to 340 kg of payload, including the rover. Its mission would last two weeks. The rover would have a mass of 100 kg, and it would operate for two weeks. One option JAXA was investigating in 2006, was to integrate a small data relay satellite and penetrators into the mission. SELENE-2 SELENE-2 , or the Selenological and Engineering Explorer 2, is a cancelled Japanese robotic mission to the Moon that would have included an orbiter, a lander and a rover. It was intended as a successor to the 2007 SELENE (Kaguya) lunar orbiter. The lander would have targeted"
"in the ancient Japanese folktale ""The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter"". After their successful release, its sub-satellites, Rstar and Vstar, were named Okina and Ouna, also derived from characters in the tale. The main scientific objectives of the mission were to: SELENE launched on 14 September 2007 at 01:31:01 UTC on an H-IIA (Model H2A2022) carrier rocket from Tanegashima Space Center into a (perigee) / (apogee) geocentric parking orbit. The total launch mass was . The SELENE mission was originally scheduled to launch in 2003, but rocket failures on another mission and technical difficulties delayed the launch until 2007. Launch"
"next 10 years, the 7th nation in the world to land a probe on the moon, after the United States (1966), the Soviet Union (1966), Japan (1990), the European Space Agency (2006), India (Chandrayaan-1's Moon Impact Probe (MIP) crash-landed on the lunar surface on 14 November 2008) and China (On 1 March 2009, Chang'e 1 crashed onto the surface of the Moon). Prerequisite paving the way for any manned moon landing, the third phase of the NKLEP after orbiting and landing would be to return rock samples to the Earth with a robotic probe. Already illustrated back in 2015's Pyongyang"
"orbit. Additionally, a state of the art manned spaceflight program is currently in development in Taiwan and is designed to compete directly with the manned programs of China, United States and Russia. Active research is currently undergoing in the development and deployment of space-based weapons for the defense of national security in Taiwan. Indian Space Research Organisation, India's national space agency, maintains an active space program. It operates a small commercial launch service and launched a successful unmanned lunar mission dubbed Chandrayaan-1 in October 2007. India has plans for a further unmanned mission to the Moon Chandrayaan 2 by end"
"to found a National Space Agency called ISRO, after the USSR and the U.S. It was the third Asian nation to send satellites into space after China and Japan in 1970, starting with Aryabhata in 1975. In January 2007, India became the fourth nation to complete atmospheric reentry In October 2008, India launched its first unmanned lunar probe, Chandrayaan 1, which operated until August 2009. On 14 November 2008, the Moon Impact Probe separated from the Chandrayaan orbiter at 20:06 and was deliberately made to strike the Moon near the south pole, making India the fourth country to reach the"
"Japanese Lunar Exploration Program The (Japanese) Lunar Exploration Program (月探査計画), is a program of robotic and human missions to the Moon undertaken by the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), and its division, the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS). It is also one of the three major enterprises of the JAXA Space Exploration Center (JSPEC). The main goal of the program is ""to elucidate the origin and evolution of the Moon and utilize the Moon in the future"". The first spacecraft of the program, the unmanned lunar orbiter SELENE (Kaguya), was launched from Tanegashima Space Center on September 14,"
"China tested a ballistic missile designed to destroy satellites in orbit, which was followed by a US demonstration of a similar capability in 2008. Japan's space agency, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, is a major space player in Asia. While not maintaining a commercial launch service, Japan has deployed a module in the ISS and operates an unmanned cargo spacecraft, the H-II Transfer Vehicle. JAXA has plans to launch a Mars fly-by probe. Their lunar probe, SELENE, is touted as the most sophisticated lunar exploration mission in the post-Apollo era. Japan's Hayabusa probe was mankind's first sample return from an"
"Synchrotron-Light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East The Synchrotron-Light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East (SESAME) is an independent laboratory located in Allan in the Balqa governorate of Jordan, created under the auspices of UNESCO on 30 May 2002. Aimed at promoting peace between Middle Eastern countries, Jordan was chosen as the location for the laboratory, as it was then the only country that maintained diplomatic relations with all the other founding members; Bahrain, Cyprus, Egypt, Iran, Israel, Pakistan, the Palestinian Authority, and Turkey. The project was launched in 1999 and the ground breaking"
"Iranian members of SESAME, were killed in two different terrorist attacks, for which an Iranian prosecutor accuses the Israeli Mossad in 2010. The roof of the laboratory collapsed during the 2013 Middle East cold snap due to heavy snowfall, which led to delays. Synchrotron-Light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East The Synchrotron-Light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East (SESAME) is an independent laboratory located in Allan in the Balqa governorate of Jordan, created under the auspices of UNESCO on 30 May 2002. Aimed at promoting peace between Middle Eastern countries, Jordan was chosen as"
"in July 2006, and the second test module, Genesis II, was launched in June 2007. Both Genesis habitats remain in orbit as of 2018. Under the Outer Space Treaty signed in 1967, the launch operator's nationality and the launch site's location determine which country is responsible for any damages occurred from a launch. After valuable resources were detected on the Moon, private companies began to formulate methods to extract the resources. Article II of the Outer Space Treaty dictates that ""outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by"
"the poles and bound into the lunar regolith. The post-Apollo era has also seen two rover missions: the final Soviet Lunokhod mission in 1973, and China's ongoing Chang'e 3 mission, which deployed its Yutu rover on 14 December 2013. The Moon remains, under the Outer Space Treaty, free to all nations to explore for peaceful purposes. The European spacecraft ""SMART-1"", the second ion-propelled spacecraft, was in lunar orbit from 15 November 2004 until its lunar impact on 3 September 2006, and made the first detailed survey of chemical elements on the lunar surface. The ambitious Chinese Lunar Exploration Program began"
"and the QinetiQ company in 2008. The use of low-cost satellite technology in planetary exploration is a further goal of the mission. The American space agency NASA became interested in the project in 2007 during the work of a BNSC/NASA Joint Working Group on lunar exploration. NASA could have contributed various parts to the mission. , no progress on the project had been announced, and the ""MoonLITE"" keyword did not appear in a search of the UK Space Agency's official web site. MoonLITE The Moon Lightweight Interior and Telecoms Experiment (MoonLITE), was a proposed British space mission to explore the"
"completed in June 2016, and the satellite was transported to the European Space Research and Technology Centre for the test campaign. The spacecraft arrived at the Guiana Space Centre on 6 January 2017 for pre-launch operations. Launch took place at the nominal time of 01:49:24 UTC on 7 March 2017. The spacecraft was injected into its target orbit at 02:47:21 UTC. Sentinel-2B Sentinel-2B is a European optical imaging satellite that was launched on 7 March 2017. It is the second Sentinel-2 satellite launched as part of the European Space Agency's Copernicus Programme, and its orbit will be phased 180° degrees"
"radar sensors and unique spectrum sensors for measuring the mineral composition. LEO (spacecraft) LEO (; English: Lunar Exploration Orbiter) was the name of a proposed German mission to the Moon, announced by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) Director Walter Doellinger on March 2, 2007. Because the needed money for the year 2009 was diverted elsewhere, the start of the project was delayed indefinitely. Precise characteristics of the mission were announced in early 2008, and estimated costs were projected to be ca. €350 million (~$514 million) over five years. The mission would involve a lunar orbiter that DLR intended to build"
"Cluster II (spacecraft) Cluster II is a space mission of the European Space Agency, with NASA participation, to study the Earth's magnetosphere over the course of nearly two solar cycles. The mission is composed of four identical spacecraft flying in a tetrahedral formation. As a replacement for the original Cluster spacecraft which were lost in a launch failure in 1996, the four Cluster II spacecraft were successfully launched in pairs in July and August 2000 onboard two Soyuz-Fregat rockets from Baikonur, Kazakhstan. In February 2011, Cluster II celebrated 10 years of successful scientific operations in space. The mission has been"
"landings had happened. As the VLT is capable of resolving equivalent to the distance between the headlights of a car as seen from the Moon, it may be able to photograph some features of the landing sites. Such photos, if and when they become available, would be the first non-NASA-produced photos of the sites at that definition. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) launched their SELENE Moon orbiter on September 14, 2007 (JST), from Tanegashima Space Center. SELENE orbited the Moon at about altitude. In May 2008, JAXA reported detecting the ""halo"" generated by the Apollo 15 Lunar Module engine"
"builds its own space probes which are launched on their own launch vehicles, and has its own deep space communication network. In 2008, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) SELENE lunar probe obtained several photographs showing evidence of Moon landings. On the left are two photos taken on the lunar surface by the Apollo 15 astronauts August 2, 1971 during EVA 3 at station 9A near Hadley Rille. On the right is a 2008 reconstruction from images taken by the SELENE terrain camera and 3D projected to the same vantage point as the surface photos. The terrain is a close"
"on-orbit, as well as a flight opportunity for one Brazilian astronaut during the course of the ISS programme. However, due to cost issues, the subcontractor Embraer was unable to provide the promised ExPrESS pallet, and Brazil left the programme in 2007. Italy has a similar contract with NASA to provide comparable services, although Italy also takes part in the programme directly via its membership in ESA. Expanding the partnership would require unanimous agreement of the existing partners. Chinese participation has been prevented by unilateral US opposition. The heads of both the South Korean and Indian space agency ISRO announced at"
"and Applications in the Middle East (SESAME), which was officially inaugurated on 17 May 2017 but had begun conducting experiments earlier. Construction of the centre began in Allan in 2003 and was completed in 2008. The other eight members of SESAME are Bahrain, Cyprus, Egypt, Iran, Israel, Pakistan, the Palestinian Authority and Turkey. SESAME was established under the auspices of UNESCO at the turn of the century before becoming a fully independent intergovernmental organization in its own right. The centre is also supported by the European Commission and by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). Synchrotrons have become an"
"the country in (mainly secondary) schools on fresh and exciting scientific topics like the last results on Mars exploration, development of equipments for spacecraft, planetary discoveries, etc. Dr. Charles Simonyi, the first repeat ""space tourist"" launched on April 7, 2007 (GMT), on board Soyuz TMA-10 to the International Space Station and returned on April 21, 2007 on his first space flight. The Hungarian-born Simonyi is a licensed amateur radio operator (KE7KDP) and he contacted students of Puskás Tivadar Távközlési Technikum (Puskás Tivadar Telecommunications Polytechnic, Budapest) on April 13. This occasion of radio contact was organized in collaboration with HAS. This"
"Herse (moon) Herse ( ; Greek: ""Ἕρση""), or Jupiter L, previously known by its provisional designation of , is a natural satellite of Jupiter. It was discovered on 8 February 2003 by the astronomers Brett J. Gladman, John J. Kavelaars, Jean-Marc Petit, and Lynne Allen and also by a team of astronomers at the University of Hawaii. It was named after Herse 'dew', by some accounts a daughter of Zeus and Selene the moon in Greek mythology, on 11 November 2009. Herse is about 2 kilometres in diameter, and orbits Jupiter at an average distance of 22.134 gigametre (Gm) in"
"ORFEO (Optical and Radar Federated Earth Observation) programme, being due for launch around 2008–10. France is a MUSIS partner, which should be considered in assessing the potential of information sharing among the partners. Germany's SAR Lupe is a constellation of five X-band SAR satellites in three polar orbits. Following the first successful launch on December 19, 2006, Germany, using a Russian booster, launched the second satellite in its planned five-satellite SAR-Lupe synthetic aperture radar constellation on July 2, 2007, the third on November 1, 2007, the fourth on March 27, 2008 and the last one on July 22, 2008. The"
"which in turn deployed a lunar rover, named ""Yutu"" (Chinese: 玉兔; literally ""Jade Rabbit""). This was the first lunar soft landing since ""Luna 24"" in 1976, and the first lunar rover mission since ""Lunokhod 2"" in 1973. China intends to launch another rover mission (""Chang'e 4"") before 2020, followed by a sample return mission (""Chang'e 5"") soon after. Between 4 October 2007 and 10 June 2009, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's ""Kaguya (Selene)"" mission, a lunar orbiter fitted with a high-definition video camera, and two small radio-transmitter satellites, obtained lunar geophysics data and took the first high-definition movies from beyond"
"enough resolution to record Apollo hardware. Nevertheless, as with SELENE, Chandrayaan-1 independently recorded evidence of lighter, disturbed soil around the Apollo 15 site. China's second lunar probe, Chang'e 2, which was launched in 2010 is capable of capturing lunar surface images with a resolution of up to 1.3 metres. It claims to have spotted traces of the Apollo landings, though the relevant imagery has not been publicly identified. Aside from NASA, a number of entities and individuals observed, through various means, the Apollo missions as they took place. On later missions, NASA released information to the public explaining where third"
"dust and study the moon's atmosphere, NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) spacecraft successfully completed a planned de-orbit, bringing an end to the mission to study the structure and composition of the thin lunar atmosphere. Using a private company to provide the propulsion system leverages the capability of commercially proven technology for U.S. Government missions. In June 2017, SSL was awarded the contract to design and build the satellite servicing spacecraft vehicle for the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)’s Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Satellites (RSGS) programme, which is designed to inspect, repair, and augment geosynchronous satellites"
"LEO (spacecraft) LEO (; English: Lunar Exploration Orbiter) was the name of a proposed German mission to the Moon, announced by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) Director Walter Doellinger on March 2, 2007. Because the needed money for the year 2009 was diverted elsewhere, the start of the project was delayed indefinitely. Precise characteristics of the mission were announced in early 2008, and estimated costs were projected to be ca. €350 million (~$514 million) over five years. The mission would involve a lunar orbiter that DLR intended to build and launch in 2012 to map the lunar surface. It would"
"1993 at , between the craters Stevinus and Furnerius. Hiten The Hiten Spacecraft (ひてん, ), given the English name Celestial Maiden and known before launch as MUSES-A (Mu Space Engineering Spacecraft A), part of the MUSES Program, was built by the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science of Japan and 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 the Soviet Union or the United States. Hiten was to be placed into a highly"
"was launched on 28 June 2007, and there are plans for additional prototypes to be launched in preparation for the production model ""BA 330"" spacecraft. Zero2infinity, a Spanish aerospace company, is developing a high-altitude balloon-based launch vehicle termed a bloostar to launch small satellites to orbit for customers. The B612 Foundation is currently designing and building an asteroid-finding space telescope named Sentinel, with plans to launch it in 2016. The Planetary Society, a nonprofit space research and advocacy organization, has sponsored a series of small satellites to test the feasibility of solar sailing. Their first such project, Cosmos 1, was"