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YM COLUMN ARCHIVE

January 7, 2009

A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

This year was named “International Year of Astronomy” because it falls on the 400th memorial year since Galileo Galilei directed an astronomical telescope toward night sky for the first time in human history in 1609. Other than this, it is the 40th anniversary since Apollo 11 landed on moon. For these things and others, I wrote in the Mainichi Daily News as an installment of series about what this year means for space, in a little bit childish way it my be though. Those interested in the above, please visit:

http://mainichi.jp/life/edu/maishou/ginga/news/20090101kei00s00s010000c.html

http://mainichi.jp/life/edu/maishou/ginga/news/20090101kei00s00s011000c.html

On coming January 21st H-2A rocket is slated for launch from Tanegashima Space Center to carry “IBUKI” (the Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite: GOSAT) to the orbit around the earth. Small satellites as piggybacks are also worth noting. On February 12th Astronaut Koichi Wakata is to depart by shuttle flight for his third time. This time he will have to work on very hard job like 100 meters dash to assemble large solar paddle immediately after his arrival on International Space Station (ISS) and also just before his leaving ISS for earth he has to build the Exposed Facility of “KIBO” that also requires laborious work equally as hard as 100 meters dash. I hope he will fully enjoy space in various respects in his rather long stay of three months, which is the first long stay for a Japanese astronaut. At the end of this year Astronaut Soichi Noguchi will board Soyuz for the second flight. He is going to live on ISS for many months as long as six. This is something we can look forward to.

In February the asteroid explorer “HAYABUSA” will re-start ion engine to be injected on return trajectory bound for earth. I think HAYABUSA will make it close to earth, but it is hard to tell if the capsule having every kind of difficulties all over can really make re-entry into the atmosphere. You can expect exciting thrills of HAYABUSA adventure once again. HAYABUSA is scheduled to be back on earth in June 2010.

This is the last year for KAGUYA mission, the Japanese lunar explorer, which created a positive impression on people all over the world. It will lower its orbital altitude from 100km to 50km mainly for observation of the magnetic field of the Moon, and will be maneuvered a controlled descent on this side facing earth within this year.

This is going to be a lively year for space with many topics such as shuttle flight by Astronaut Naoko Yamazaki next year, flight on Soyuz by Satoshi Furukawa and launch of Japanese Venus explorer PLANET-C. To begin with, I hope we will make a good start with H-2A to be launched on January 21st.

Thank you in advance for your cooperation for this year.

I welcome your opinions on this column to the following E-mail address.
matogawa@planetary.or.jp

(Translated by The Planetary Society of Japan)