Sakigake

Japanese deep space probe launched in 1985

*Sakigake*
Spacecraft properties
Sakigake spacecraft

Mission type	Comet flyby
Operator	ISAS
COSPAR ID	1985-001A
SATCAT no.	15464
Mission duration	10 years and 10 months (launch date to date of last data transmission)


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) Beacon: January 8, 1999


Orbital parameters
Reference system	Heliocentric
Perihelion altitude	0.92 astronomical units
Aphelion altitude	1.15 astronomical units
Inclination	0.07 degrees
Period	382.8 days


Flyby of 1P/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 as 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 its ability to escape from Earth gravity, and observe the interplanetary medium and magnetic field. Sakigake was also supposed to act as a frame of reference for data received from probes that flew closer to Halley's Comet. Early measurements would be used to improve the mission of the Suisei probe launched several months later.

Sakigake was 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 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.

Design

Unlike its twin Suisei, it carried no imaging instruments in its instrument payload.

Launch

Sakigake was launched January 7, 1985, from Kagoshima Space Center by M-3SII launch vehicle on M-3SII-1 mission.

Halley encounter

It carried out a flyby of Halley's Comet on March 11, 1986 at a distance of 6.99 Gm.

Giacobini-Zinner encounter

There were plans for the spacecraft to go on to an encounter with 21P/Giacobini-Zinner in 1998 but the flyby had to be abandoned due to lack of propellant.

End of mission

Telemetry contact was lost on November 15, 1995, though a beacon signal continued to be received until January 7, 1999.^[2]^[3]

References

^ "Sakigake" (PDF). NASA. Retrieved 2022-12-02.
^ "Sakigake - Japan ISAS Halley's Comet Mission Sakigake". Space.about.com. Archived from the original on 2016-03-03. Retrieved 2010-02-01.
^ "Sakigake – NASA Master Catalog". Nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov. Retrieved 2010-02-01.

External links

Sakigake
Sakigake Mission Profile by NASA's Solar System Exploration
Halley's Comet Flyby
Sakigake Mission Comet Halley Data Archive at the NASA Planetary Data System, Small Bodies Node

Spacecraft missions to minor planets and comets

Active

New Horizons (multiple flybys)
OSIRIS-APEX (orbiter)
Hayabusa2♯ (lander)
Lucy (multiple flybys)
LICIACube (flyby)
Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (flyby)
Psyche (orbiter)

Past

Flybys	Cassini–Huygens Chang'e 2 Clementine^† CONTOUR^† Deep Impact EPOXI Deep Space 1 Galileo Halley Armada Giotto Sakigake Suisei Vega 1 Vega 2 International Cometary Explorer NEA Scout^† NEAR Shoemaker Pioneer 7 PROCYON^† Rosetta Stardust Ulysses
Orbiters	Dawn NEAR Shoemaker Rosetta Timeline
Landers	Hayabusa MINERVA^† Hayabusa2 MASCOT Rover-1A / HIBOU Rover-1B / OWL Rover-2^† NEAR Shoemaker Philae
Impactors	Deep Impact DART
Sample return	Hayabusa Hayabusa2 Stardust OSIRIS-REx

Planned

Hera (orbiter, 2024)
- AIDA
DESTINY+ (multiple flybys, 2025)
Tianwen-2 (multiple flybys and sample return, 2025)
MBR Explorer (multiple flybys and orbiter, 2028)
Comet Interceptor (flyby, 2029)

Proposed

ASTER (orbiter, 2021)
Athena (flyby of Pallas, 2022)
Shensuo (flybys, 2024)
Centaurus (multiple flybys, 2026–2029)
Chimera (orbiter, 2025)
CORSAIR (sample return)
HAMMER (nuclear impactor concept)
MANTIS (multiple flybys)
OKEANOS (multiple flybys and sample return, 2026)
World Is Not Enough (spacecraft refueling concept)
Interstellar Probe (flyby, 2030–2042)

Cancelled or
not developed

AGORA
AIM
Asteroid Redirect Mission
CAESAR
Castalia
Clementine 2
Comet Hopper
CONDOR
CRAF
Don Quijote
Hayabusa Mk2
Janus
MAOSEP
Marco Polo
New Horizons 2
Vesta

Asteroid belt
Asteroid capture
Asteroid mining
Colonization of asteroids
Ceres
Pluto
- Exploration
Small Solar System bodies
- Near-Earth object
- Trans-Neptunian object
  - Colonization
- Trojan
Vesta

Probes are listed in chronological order of launch. ^† indicates mission failures.

Japanese space program

Italics indicates projects in development.
Symbol ^† indicates failed projects.
~~Strikethrough lines~~ indicate cancelled projects.

Space agencies

National space agencies	JAXA former ISAS NAL NASDA NICT JSS
Joint development partners	NASA¹ ESA² ASI³ CSA⁴ Roscosmos⁵ AEB⁶ INPE⁷ ISRO⁸

Astronomical observation

Past	Akari ASCA ASTRO-E^† ~~Astro-G~~ CORSA^† Ginga Hakucho HALCA Hinotori Hitomi^† ~~SPICA~~ Suzaku Tenma Yohkoh
Active	Hinode Hisaki XRISM¹
Future	ATHENA² SOLAR-C¹ GREX-PLUS [ja] HiZ-GUNDAM [ja] LAPYUTA LiteBIRD Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope¹ Nano-JASMINE Small-JASMINE

Communications satellites, broadcasting satellites and satellite navigation systems

Past	BS 2X 3H 3N Kakehashi Kirari Kizuna Kodama MBSat N-STAR a b Sakura (1 2a 2b 3a 3b) Yuri 1 2a 2b 3a 3b
Active	Kirameki 1 2 Michibiki 1 2 3 4 1R MTSAT N-STAR c d JDRS
Future	DSN 3 QZS 5 6 7

Earth observation

Past	Akebono Daichi 1 3^† Denpa Fuyo-1 Jikiken Kyokko Midori I II Momo 1 1b Ohozora Taiyo TRMM¹ Ume 1 b Geotail¹
Active	Aqua^1,7 Arase ASNARO 1 2 Daichi-2 GPM¹ Himawari Ibuki original 2 Shikisai Shizuku
Future	ALOS-4 EarthCARE² GOSAT-GW PMM

Engineering tests

Past	Ayame 1 2 DASH EXPRESS IKAROS Jindai Kiku 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 LDREX 1 2 LRE Micro LabSat-1 Myojo Ohsumi Orizuru RAISE 2 3^† ~~PETSAT~~ RAPIS-1 Ryusei SERVIS-1 SERVIS-2 SDS-1 SFU Shinsei ~~SmartSat-1~~ Tansei 1 2 3 4 Tasuki Tsubame Tsubasa USERS
Active	Ajisai Reimei SDS-4
Future	BEAK ETS-IX G-SATELLITE SERVIS-3

Human spaceflight

Past	~~Fuji crewed spacecraft~~ ~~HOPE-X~~ H-II Transfer Vehicle
Active	International Space Station (ISS) & Japanese Experiment Module (Kibō)^1,2,3,4,5,6
Future	HTV-X Japanese Space Station Module (Mitsui) Lunar Gateway^1,2,4

Space probes

The Moon

Past	Hakuto-R Mission 1^† Hiten ~~Lunar-A~~ Kaguya (SELENE) OMOTENASHI^† ~~SELENE-2~~
Active	EQUULEUS Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM)
Future	Hakuto-R Mission 2 HERACLES^2,4 Lunar Cruiser Lunar Polar Exploration Mission⁸ (LUPEX) Yaoki

Others

Past	Hayabusa ~~Hayabusa Mk2~~ Nozomi^† PROCYON^† Sakigake Shin'en^† Suisei
Active	Akatsuki BepiColombo (MMO/Mio)² Hayabusa2 Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer²
Future	Comet Interceptor² DESTINY+ Dragonfly¹ Hera² MELOS Martian Moons eXploration Next Generation Small-Body Sample Return TEREX

Reconnaissance satellites

Past	IGS-Optical 1 2 Experimentally 3 IGS-Radar 1 2
Active	IGS-Optical 3 4 5 6 Experimentally 5 IGS-Radar 3 4 Spare 5 6
Future	IGS-Optical 7 8 IGS-Radar 7 8

Private small satellites

Past	CosMoz CUTE 1.7+APD Fuji 1 2 Hayato HIBARI HIT-SAT Kagayaki Kanta-kun (WEOS) Kūkai Maido-1 Negai☆″ Niwaka RAIKO Waseda-SAT2 WE WISH
Active	CUTE 1 1.7+APDII Fuji-3 Hitomi Hodoyoshi 1 2 3 4 Horyu 2 Kiseki PROITERES Raijin Raijin-2 SEEDS SOCRATES XI IV V
Future	DRUMS KITSUNE OPUSAT-II QSAT-EOS RSP-01 SOMESAT SpaceTuna1 SPROUT TSUBAME WNI satellite

v t e ← 1984 Orbital launches in 1985 1986 →
January	STS-51-C (USA-8)
February	USA-9 Arabsat-1A Brasilsat A1
March	Geosat Intelsat VA F-10
April	STS-51-D (Anik C1, Leasat 3) STS-51-B (Nusat)
May	GStar-1 Telecom 1B
June	Soyuz T-13 STS-51-G (Morelos 1, Arabsat-1B, Telstar 3D, SPARTAN-101) Progress 24 Intelsat VA F-11
July	Giotto Kosmos 1669 STS-51-F (PDP)
August	STS-51-I (Aussat A1, ASC-1, Leasat 4)
September	Spacenet 3 Soyuz T-14 Kosmos 1686 Intelsat VA F-12
October	STS-51-J (USA-11, USA-12) USA-10 STS-61-A (GLOMR)
November	STS-61-B (Morelos 2, Aussat A2, Satcom K2, OEX, EASE/ACCESS)
Unknown month	Sakigake Kosmos 1616 Kosmos 1617 Kosmos 1618 Kosmos 1619 Kosmos 1620 Kosmos 1621 Kosmos 1622 Molniya-3 No.36 Kosmos 1623 Kosmos 1624 Gorizont No.21L Kosmos 1625 Kosmos 1626 Kosmos 1627 Kosmos 1628 Meteor-2 No.13 Kosmos 1629 Kosmos 1630 Kosmos 1631 Kosmos 1632 Kosmos 1633 Kosmos 1634 Kosmos 1635 Kosmos 1636 Kosmos 1637 Kosmos 1638 Kosmos 1639 Kosmos 1640 Kosmos 1641 Kosmos 1642 Ekran No.28L Kosmos 1643 Kosmos 1644 Unnamed Kosmos 1645 Kosmos 1646 Kosmos 1647 Kosmos 1648 Prognoz 10 Kosmos 1649 Kosmos 1650 Kosmos 1651 Kosmos 1652 Kosmos 1653 Kosmos 1654 Molniya-3 No.39 Kosmos 1655 Kosmos 1656 Kosmos 1657 Kosmos 1658 Kosmos 1659 Kosmos 1660 Kosmos 1661 Kosmos 1662 Kosmos 1663 Unnamed Kosmos 1664 Kosmos 1665 Kosmos 1666 Kosmos 1667 Kosmos 1668 Molniya-3 No.37 Kosmos 1670 Kosmos 1671 Transit-O 24 Transit-O 30 Kosmos 1672 Kosmos 1672 Kosmos 1673 Kosmos 1674 Gran' No.26L Kosmos 1675 Kosmos 1676 Suisei Molniya-1 No.61 Kosmos 1677 Unnamed Kosmos 1678 Kosmos 1679 Kosmos 1680 Kosmos 1681 ECS-3 Kosmos 1682 Kosmos 1683 Kosmos 1684 Kosmos 1685 Kosmos 1687 Kosmos 1688 Kosmos 1689 Molniya-3 No.38 Kosmos 1690 Kosmos 1695 Kosmos 1692 Kosmos 1693 Kosmos 1694 Kosmos 1691 Kosmos 1696 Fanhui Shi Weixing 8 Kosmos 1697 Kosmos 1698 Molniya-1 No.73 Unnamed Meteor-3 No.2 Kosmos 1699 Kosmos 1700 Molniya-1 No.56 Kosmos 1701 Kosmos 1702 Gran' No.28L Kosmos 1703 Kosmos 1704 Kosmos 1705 Kosmos 1706 Kosmos 1707 USA-13 USA-14 Kosmos 1708 Kosmos 1709 Molniya-3 No.40 Kosmos 1710 Kosmos 1711 Kosmos 1712 Meteor-2 No.14 Kosmos 1713 Kosmos 1714
Payloads are separated by bullets ( · ), launches by pipes ( \| ). Crewed flights are indicated in underline. Uncatalogued launch failures are listed in italics. Payloads deployed from other spacecraft are denoted in (brackets).