Japan has been forced to abandon its first ever interplanetary space mission after failing to correct an onboard electrical fault with its Mars probe Nozomi.
Nozomi was scheduled to arrive in orbit around Mars in late December 2003 but will now be manoeuvred away from its target. This is to prevent it from crashing into the planet鈥檚 surface and potentially contaminating it with Earth microbes. 快猫短视频s hope to find evidence that Mars once harboured life, or perhaps even that it still does.
The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) announced on Tuesday that it had been unable to correct a short circuit aboard Nozomi and would have to forsake its Mars mission.
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鈥淚t is very unfortunate for JAXA to announce that we have decided to give up its injection into the orbit of Mars,鈥� said the agency. 鈥淲e would like to deeply apologise for this failure, and will continue to do our best to investigate the cause.鈥�
Mission impossible
Nozomi, meaning 鈥渉ope鈥� in Japanese, has suffered numerous setbacks since its launch in July 1998. During an orbital swing past the Earth shortly after launch, a thruster malfunction left the probe with too little fuel to complete its original mission on time.
A new trajectory, involving two more Earth flybys, saw the mission delayed by five years. Then, in May 2002, a solar flare seriously damaged the craft鈥檚 electronics.
The probe will probably now end up orbiting the Sun. JAXA hopes to retrieve some useful scientific information from this orbit.
鈥淣o one should lose heart,鈥� said Louis Friedman, executive director of The Planetary Society. 鈥淭his was Japan鈥檚 first mission to a planet. They conceived and operated it brilliantly, but space is unforgiving as we have so frequently learned. There will be more missions exploring other worlds from Japan.鈥�
Japan鈥檚 space agency suffered another blow in November 2003 when a rocket carrying two spy satellites suffered an unspecified malfunction after take-off and had to be destroyed.
However, Nozomi is just one of a number of promising Mars missions. Europe鈥檚 Mars Express spacecraft, which is carrying a small British-made lander called Beagle 2, is scheduled to arrive at Mars around 25 December. NASA has also sent two robotic rovers which should touch down on the surface of Mars in January 2004.