Spacecraft Sakigake |
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| Operator | ISAS (now part of JAXA). |
|---|---|
| Mission type | Flyby |
| Flyby of | Comet Halley |
| Launch date | January 7, 1985 from Kagoshima Space Center |
| Launch vehicle | M-3SII-1 |
| Mission duration | November 15, 1995 |
| COSPAR ID | 1985-001A |
| Homepage | SAKIGAKE |
| Mass | 138.1 kg |
| Orbital elements | |
| Eccentricity | - |
| Inclination | .07° |
| Apoapsis | 1.15 AU |
| Periapsis | .92 AU |
| Orbital period | 382.8 d |
Sakigake (translating to "pioneer", or "Pathfinder"), pre-launch codename MS-T5, was Japan's first interplanetary spacecraft, and the first deep space probe to be launched by any country other than the USA or the Soviet Union. It aimed to demonstrate the performance of the new launch vehicle, test the schemes of the first escape from the Earth gravitation for Japan on engineering basis, observing space plasma and magnetic field in interplanetary space. Sakigake was also supposed to get references for scientists. Early measurements would be used to improve the mission of the Suisei probe several months later.
Sakigake developed by the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science for the National Space Development Agency (both of which are now part of the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA). It became a part of the Halley Armada together with Suisei, the Soviet/French Vega probes, the ESA Giotto and the NASA International Cometary Explorer, to explore Halley's Comet during its 1986 sojourn through the inner solar system.
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Unlike its twin Suisei, it carried no imaging instruments in its instrument payload.
Sakigake was launched January 7, 1985 from Kagoshima Space Center by M-3SII-1 launch vehicle.
It carried out a flyby of Halley's Comet on March 11, 1986 at a distance of 6.99 million km.
There were plans for the spacecraft to go on to an encounter with 21P/Giacobini-Zinner in 1998 but they had to be abandoned due to lack of propellant.
Telemetry contact was lost on 15 November 1995, though a beacon signal continued to be received until 7 January 1999.[1][2]
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