Submission + - Japan recommends scrapping moon mission
jonerik writes: "This article from the Associated Press reports that the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is recommending that the nation cancel its long-planned program to land ground-penetrating probes from an unmanned spacecraft known as Lunar-A on the Moon. JAXA spokeswoman Satoko Kanazawa. In the works since 1995, and originally scheduled for launch in 2004, the main holdup has been the development of the probe's two penetrators, which would have been dropped from an orbiting satellite and would embed themselves into the lunar surface to transmit seismic data and information on the internal structure of the Moon. Although the final test of the penetrators is still scheduled for July of this year, JAXA now believes that the Lunar-A mother ship has deteriorated too badly over the past decade and would require too large an investment to repair. Instead, JAXA will concentrate on perfecting the penetrator design, with an aim of selling the technology to other spacefaring nations. Although Japan has stated a desire to send its own men to the Moon sometime around 2025, JAXA's level of success in recent years can perhaps best be described as 'mixed', with two 2006 solar sail tests having failed, but two 2004 tests having been successful. In addition, two of four 2003 spy satellite launches also failed, with two more scheduled for launch in the next two months or so. Japan is currently planning launching on the Planet-C mission to Venus in 2010, the joint Japan/ESA BepiColombo mission to Mercury in 2013, and an unnamed solar sail mission to Jupiter planned for sometime after 2010."