Kaguya

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Lunar orbiter spacecraft. Formerly named "Selene".

http://www.isas.jaxa.jp/e/enterp/missions/selene/index.shtml

Sponsor: Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) http://www.jaxa.jp/index_e.html

Successfully orbiting the Moon as of March 2008.

An initial report of the missions results, including videos and photos, is published at this web link: http://www.iafastro.org/index.php?id=554


Kaguya was intentionally crashed after completing its mission. It impacted the moon at 18:25 hours UTC on the 10th of June,2009. Kaguya carried sub-satellites Rstar and Vstar. After the release of the sub-satellites they were renamed Okina and Ouna. Okina served as a radio relay between Kaguya and Earth allowing the measurement of Doppler shifts caused by gravitational anomalies even when Kaguya was on the far side of the moon. Ouna also measured gravitational fields. It used very long baseline interferometry to complement the Doppler measurements of Okina.