dipper@utastro.UUCP (Debbie Byrd) (02/11/86)
Japan was the fourth nation to send satellites into orbit. More -- after this. February 11 The Fourth Space Nation On today's date in the year l970 Japan became the fourth country to successfully launch a satellite into Earth orbit. It joined the Soviet Union, the United States and France as a space-faring nation. Japan's first satellite was launched from the Kagoshima Space Center -- located in the southern part of the islands of Japan. The test satellite was named "Osumi' and weighed about 58 pounds. Half of that weight was the instrument package -- which transmitted for a period of seven hours as the satellite orbited Earth seventeen times. Now, sixteen years later, Japan has two probes enroute to Comet Halley. The Japanese craft do not come as close to the comet as the missions launched by the Soviet Union and the European Space Agency. But the two Japanese Halley missions are a proud achievement for that country. Their arrival in space near Halley makes Japan the third country to have sent spacecraft from Earth to another world in the solar system. Japan launched the first Halley probe in January of l985. Named Sakigake -- which means Pioneer or Forerunner -- its success led to the liftoff of a second identical vehicle eight months later. The second spacecraft will travel closer to Halley -- within 60,000 miles of the comet. Meanwhile, Sakigake is continuing on around the sun -- due to come between Halley and the sun on March 11. It'll pass about 9 million miles from the comet. Script by Diana Hadley. (c) Copyright 1985, 1986 McDonald Observatory, University of Texas at Austin