GoldStar Explorations: Space: Recent Planetary Missions:
Selene / Kaguya (with Okina and Ouna).
by Gregory A. Smith (Gzen)
SELENE for Selenological and Engineering Explorer (or "Kaguya" as the spacecraft is called its country of origin; Japan) was launched in September 2007 to conduct a global scientific survey of the Moon and to develop the technology for future lunar exploration. By the end of 2007, Kaguya had checked out all of its observation instruments and began its regular data collecting operations. Kaguya completed its planned operation within a year and continued operations continued until it was directed to impact the moon on June 10, 2009.
One of the really nice about this mission (what isn't nice about lunar orbiters?) is that it carried two 2.2 megapixel HDTV cameras, one wide-angle and one telephoto, which provided amazing footage of the Moon rolling under the cameras as Kaguya orbited a hundred kilometers above the lunar surface. Though the cameras do provide surface information, they were primarily for public relations. You will see why here:
Here you go. Put this on full screen and you'll be orbiting the moon in HDTV:
SELENE / Kaguya / Okina and Ouna together carried 15 instruments to study the lunar origin and evolution of the moon and to test new technology for further exploration:
Instruments
Charged Particle Spectrometer (CPS)
Gamma Ray Spectrometer (GRS)
High Definition Television cameras (HDTV)
Laser Altimeter (LALT)
Lunar Magnetometer (LMAG)
Lunar Radar Sounder (LRS)
Multi-band Imager (MI)
Plasma energy Angle and Composition Experiment (PACE)
Spectral Profiler (SP)
Terrain Camera (TC)
Radio Science (RS)
Relay Satellite aboard Okina (RSAT)
Upper-atmosphere and Plasma Imager (UPI)
VLBI Radio source aboard Okina and Ouna (VRAD)
X-ray Spectrometer (XRS)
The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter - aka - The Tale of Princess Kaguya
Kaguya is named after character in a 10th-century Japanese fiction called "The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter." The story is also known as "The Tale of Princess Kaguya." In the tale, an old, childless bamboo cutter found a tiny, beautiful little girl inside a glowing bamboo plant. Taketori no Okina (Old Man who Harvests Bamboo) and his wife, Ouna, named the girl Nayotake no Kaguya-hime, (Shining Princess of Supple Bamboo). It turned out that Princess Kaguya was from the Moon and she would eventually have to go back.
(Image: Wikipedia Commons/The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter - Discovery of Princess Kaguya)
The Kaguya lunar orbiter also brought two sub-satellites with it, named Okina and Ouna, that relayed radio communications between the Kaguya orbiter and Earth and also conducted radio science and gravity mapping of the lunar farside. Okina was directed to impact the moon on February 12, 2009, near the crater Mineur D on the lunar farside . I haven't found what ultimately happened to Okina's wife Ouna. Is she still orbiting the Moon?
412,627 names and messages were also sent with Kaguya (printed on a sheet at 70 microns per character) as part of the "Wish Upon the Moon" campaign conducted by the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).
References and Related Links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SELENE
The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tale_of_the_Bamboo_Cutter
Kaguya, NSSDCA/ COSPAR ID: 2007-039A: NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive:
https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraftDisplay.do?id=2007-039A
Japan Times: Culture: Film Review:
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2013/11/21/films/film-reviews/kaguya-hime-no-monogatari-the-tale-of-princess-kaguya/#.WwoDxu6FOM8
Kaguyahime - (animation on Youtube)
Hi, I found some acronyms/abbreviations in this post. This is how they expand: