dipper@utastro.UUCP (Debbie Byrd) (07/21/85)
The Japanese are sending two spacecraft to Comet Halley. More -- after this. July 21 Japan's Halley Missions Last January the Japanese launched the first of two planned probes to investigate Comet Halley. It's Japan's first interplanetary mission. The successful lift-off from the Kigoshima Space Center in southern Japan proved the capabilities of the rocket used for the launch. Next month Japan will launch an almost identical second Halley probe -- called Planet A. Both of Japan's spacecraft will make their closest approaches to Halley in early March of 1986 -- around the same time as the Soviet and European Space Agency plan to have their missions in the comet's vicinity. Neither of the two Japanese probes will come as close to Halley as the other missions -- Planet A may fly within sixty thousand miles of the comet -- the other Japanese craft will pass about nine million miles away. The ultraviolet cameras carried by both Japanese probes will provide information on the hydrogen cloud surrounding the nucleus of Comet Halley. This cloud may extend for tens of thousands of miles outward from the nucleus -- but isn't visible to Earth-based observers because our atmosphere blocks out those wavelengths. Other onboard instruments will collect data on the interaction of the comet with the solar wind -- the ionized gases ejected by the sun. The Halley missions planned by Japan are major steps for that country's space program -- and an additional source of scientific data on the comet that fascinates people the world over. Script by Diana Hadley. (c) Copyright 1984, 1985 McDonald Observatory, University of Texas at Austin