Subj:	 Japan's probe to Mars
Date:	10/20/99 10:13:15 AM Pacific Daylight Time


Hi, I am a Japanese who saw your inquiry about the 
Japanese probe to Mars on Kent's site.

We failed to accelerate the probe by Earth powered 
swingby (as the folllowing news from the site shows).

----------------------------------------------------
(From the Japanese site you mentioned)

Earth-Swing BY

Date:Dec. 20, 8:9:54(UT)
( The Distance from the earth center) 7381km
 10.9km/s
 
"Nozomi" is inserted into trans-mars orbit  with Earth
powered swingby with 7-minutes 
burning of bi-propellant engine. Perigee height of 
his powered swingby is appox.
1000 km. Orbital correction maneuvers were performed 
on Dec 21 08:01 and 08:39 (JST). 
Due to insufficient acceleration of the Earth powered
swingby, the correction volocity
was large. The cause and the effect of the 
insufficient acceleration are now under
investigation.

(After this, they announced that they failed to 
accelate it properly, and the arrival of the probe
would be 3 or 4 years delayed.)

------------------------------------------------------

I think the probe is now surely flying towards Mars, 
but it is still far away from it(I heard that the 
probe was 3 or 4 years behind the original schedule.
 So,we have to wait for a few more years.)

This indicates that Japanese space technology is still
poor or mediocre.

At the same time, as a Japanese, I am very sorry that 
the person has not replied to you. "Hiding failure" or
"reluctunt to mention about failure" is one of our 
country's worst habit (The Nuke issue about Tokaimura
exposed the problem).

I hope this info will be of help to you. I will let 
you know any update about this issue.Thank you.



Sorry for my email again. 

They have updated the Japanese-version of the site 
(Mar 08,99). They should be blamed for not updating 
the English version!!

First of all, please see the following jpg (Sorry it 
is in Japanese)

http://www.planet-b.isas.ac.jp/neworb.jpg 


The black line is Nozomi's orbit.  As it shows, the 
probe is supposed to arrive Mars at the end of 2003 or 
big. of 2004.(needs two more swing-by the earth)


In another page, they explain the reason in Japanese.
 When the probe escaped from the Earth's atmosphere, 
there was a trouble on the pressure-valve.  Due to the 
accident, the probe lacked enough (driving) force to 
escape the atomosphere. To correct the problem, 
unexpected amount of the fuel was consumed. To 
complete the original mission of the probe, they 
changed their plan and adopted two more swing-by in 
order to save the fuel.

Regards,