Tokyo, May 21: Japan has launched a rocked carrying an experimental space kite, which uses a technology that only requires solar energy to propel itself.
The H-2A rocket blasted off at 6:58 a.m. Friday (2158 GMT Thursday) from the Tanegashima Space Center in Kagoshima Prefecture, after its original launch date on Tuesday was postponed due to bad weather.
Japan’s Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said that “the rocket is flying normally.”
The rocket, which is on a mission to explore Venus, carries the Interplanetary Kite-craft Accelerated by Radiation of the Sun (IKAROS), which is a high-tech space yacht that gathers its energy from solar particles putting pressure on its sails.
IKAROS, which cost JPY 1.5 billion (USD 16 million) to develop, will be the first use of the propellant-free technology in deep space, although the technology has been tested in orbit around the Earth before.
“This idea of a solar sail was born some 100 years ago, as we often find it in science fiction novels, but it has not been realized to date,” JAXA says on its website.
“If we can verify this navigation technology through the IKAROS, it will mark the first spectacular achievement of its kind in the world.”
One of the main objectives of the probe is to understand the “super-rotation” of the Venus atmosphere, where violent winds drive storms and clouds at speeds of more than 360 km/h (220 mph) — 60 times faster than the planet itself rotates.
——-Agencies