Japanese flyby mission to Halley's Comet (1985–1999)
Sakigake Artist's rendering of theSakigake spacecraft
Mission type Halley flybyOperator ISAS COSPAR ID 1985-001A SATCAT no. 15464 Mission duration 14 years and 1 day Spacecraft properties Launch mass 138.1 kilograms (304 lb)[ 1] Start of mission Launch date January 7, 1985, 19:27 (1985-01-07UTC19:27Z ) UTC Rocket Mu-3SII Launch site Kagoshima End of mission Last contact Data: November 15, 1995 (1995-11-16 ) Orbital parameters Reference system Heliocentric Perihelion altitude 0.92 AU Aphelion altitude 1.15 AU Inclination 0.07 degrees Period 382.8 days Flyby of1P/Halley Closest approach March 11, 1986, 04:18 UTC Distance 6,990,000 kilometres (4,340,000 mi)
Sakigake (さきがけ lit. ' pioneer', 'pathfinder ' ) , known before launch asMS-T5 , was Japan's firstinterplanetary spacecraft and the firstdeep space probe to be launched by any country other than the US or the Soviet Union. It aimed to demonstrate the performance of the newlaunch vehicle , test its ability to escape fromEarth gravity , and observe theinterplanetary medium andmagnetic field .Sakigake also served as a reference probe forHalley's Comet . Early measurements would be used to improve the mission of theSuisei probe launched several months later.
Sakigake was developed by theInstitute of Space and Astronautical Science for theNational Space Development Agency (both of which are now part of theJapanese Aerospace Exploration Agency , or JAXA). It became a part of theHalley Armada together with Suisei, the SovietVega probes, theESA Giotto and theNASA International Cometary Explorer , to explore Halley's Comet during its 1986 sojourn through the inner Solar System.
Unlike its twinSuisei instrument payload.
Sakigake was launched January 7, 1985, fromKagoshima Space Center byM-3SII launch vehicle on M-3SII-1 mission.
It carried out a flyby of Halley's Comet on March 11, 1986, at a distance of 6.99 million km.
Giacobini-Zinner encounter [ edit ] There were plans for thespacecraft to go on to an encounter with21P/Giacobini-Zinner in 1998, but the flyby had to be abandoned because of a lack ofpropellant .
Telemetry contact was lost on November 15, 1995, though a beacon signal continued to be received until January 7, 1999.[ 2] [ 3]
Active Past
Flybys Orbiters Landers Impactors Sample return
Planned Proposed Cancelled or Related Probes are listed in chronological order of launch.† indicates mission failures.
Italics indicates projects in development.Symbol† indicates failed projects. Strikethrough lines indicate cancelled projects.
National space agencies Joint development partners
January February March April May June July August September October November Unknown Payloads are separated by bullets ( · ), launches by pipes ( | ). Crewed flights are indicated inunderline . Uncatalogued launch failures are listed initalics . Payloads deployed from other spacecraft are denoted in (brackets).
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