''Shin'en'', known before launch as UNITEC-1 or UNISEC Technology Experiment Carrier 1, is a Japanese student spacecraft which was intended to make a flyby of
Venus
Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never f ...
in order to study the effects of interplanetary
spaceflight
Spaceflight (or space flight) is an application of astronautics to fly spacecraft into or through outer space, either with or without humans on board. Most spaceflight is uncrewed and conducted mainly with spacecraft such as satellites in o ...
on
spacecraft computers. In doing so, it was intended to become the first student-built spacecraft to operate beyond
geocentric orbit
A geocentric orbit or Earth orbit involves any object orbiting Earth, such as the Moon or artificial satellites. In 1997, NASA estimated there were approximately 2,465 artificial satellite payloads orbiting Earth and 6,216 pieces of space debri ...
. It was operated by
UNISEC, a collaboration between several Japanese universities.
It was launched on 20 May 2010 and contact was lost shortly after.
Spacecraft
''Shin'en'' measures ,
and has a mass of .
It has no
attitude control
Attitude control is the process of controlling the orientation of an aerospace vehicle with respect to an inertial frame of reference or another entity such as the celestial sphere, certain fields, and nearby objects, etc.
Controlling vehicle ...
or stabilisation system.
Power is provided by
solar cell
A solar cell, or photovoltaic cell, is an electronic device that converts the energy of light directly into electricity by the photovoltaic effect, which is a physical and chemical phenomenon. s attached to the outside of the spacecraft, which will produce around 25 Watts of electricity.
The primary payload of ''Shin'en'' consists of six university-built computers, which will be tested in
interplanetary space
Interplanetary may refer to:
* Interplanetary space, the space between the planets of the Solar System
*Interplanetary spaceflight, travel between planets
*The interplanetary medium, the material that exists in interplanetary space
*The InterPlane ...
for robustness against the radiation and extremes of temperature. The spacecraft also carries a camera, and a radiation counter.
In order to simplify the system and reduce cost, a low power communications system will be used. It will broadcast a
continuous wave with a data transfer rate of one
bit per second.
UNISEC has invited
amateur radio operators to assist in collecting data from the spacecraft.
Launch
''Shin'en'' was successfully launched from Pad 1 of the
Yoshinobu Launch Complex
Yoshinobu Launch Complex (LC-Y) is a rocket launch site at the Tanegashima Space Center on Tanegashima. The site and its collection of facilities were originally built for the H-II launch vehicle and later used for H-IIA and H-IIB launches.
I ...
at the
Tanegashima Space Centre, at 21:58:22 UTC on 20 May 2010. It was being launched as a secondary payload aboard an
H-IIA
H-IIA (H-2A) is an active expendable launch system operated by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. These liquid fuel rockets have been used to launch satellites into geostationary orbit; lunar o ...
202 rocket, with the primary payload being the
Akatsuki spacecraft bound for Venus. The
IKAROS solar sail experiment was also deployed from the same rocket on a trajectory towards Venus. Three other student spacecraft;
Waseda-SAT2,
K-Sat and
Negai ☆ were also launched, however they separated from the rocket whilst it was still orbiting the Earth. ''Shin'en'' was the last spacecraft to separate from the rocket. The launch was conducted by
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries
is a Japanese multinational engineering, electrical equipment and electronics corporation headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. MHI is one of the core companies of the Mitsubishi Group and its automobile division is the predecessor of Mitsubishi Mo ...
on behalf of the
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.
The H-IIA rocket was rolled out to the launch pad on 16 May 2010, departing the assembly building at 21:01 UTC and arriving at the launch pad 24 minutes later at 21:25 UTC,
in preparation for a launch scheduled at 21:44:14 UTC on 17 May. The terminal countdown began at 11:30 UTC on 17 May and by 15:28, the loading of
cryogenic propellant into the rocket's first and second stages had been completed.
This launch attempt was scrubbed a few minutes before the scheduled launch time due to bad weather.
Following launch, ''Shin'en'' separated from the carrier rocket into a
heliocentric orbit. It was planned to fly past Venus six or seven months into its mission.
Signals from the craft were briefly detected after launch, but contact was then lost.
[ The last signals were received at 15:43 UTC on 21 May 2010, when the spacecraft was from Earth. UNISEC explains that ''Shin'en'' is the first student spacecraft to pass over the Van Allen radiation belt. ''Shin'en'' was expected to be near Venus as of December 2010.]
See also
* List of missions to Venus
There have been 46 (including gravity-assist flybys) space missions to the planet Venus. Missions to Venus constitute part of the exploration of Venus.
List
As of 2020, the Soviet Union, United States, European Space Agency and Japan have con ...
References
{{Orbital launches in 2010
Spacecraft launched in 2010
Student satellites
Japanese space probes
Spacecraft launched by H-II rockets
Derelict satellites in heliocentric orbit