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Interesting launch, not just the first Japanese Venus [0] mission, also an interplanetary university mission [1] and also a solar sail mission [2]. Looks very interesting ... [0] http://www.jaxa.jp/countdown/f17/index_e.html [1] http://www.unisec.jp/unitec-1/en/about_unitec-1.html [2] http://www.jaxa.jp/projects/sat/ikaros/index_e.html

At 8:33 a.m., (Japan Standard Time) January 15, 2017, SS-520 No. 4, JAXA's sounding rocket launched from the Uchinoura Space Center. Through SS-520 No. 4 launch, JAXA sought for research and development of launch vehicles and satellites and the launch demonstration of TRICOM-1, its onboard nanosat that weighs about 3 kilograms. The launch was part of Japanese government's program for development of launch vehicles and satellites in public-private partnerships. Long story short: Space-X has the better fireworks

CNES research to detect warning signs of earthquakes in the ionosphere. Jaxa is also interested in conducting such studies. To my opinion it's worth taken a closer look at what they are doing!! 

Update: it seems we are already looking into it, I found this recent call from ESRIN: IONOSPHERIC SOUNDING FOR IDENTIFICATION OF PRE-SEISMIC ACTIVITY (RE-ISSUE) ESA Open Invitation To Tender AO7548 Open Date: 08/07/2013 Closing Date: 09/09/2013

very nice!! could not find the dimensions yet ...

20m diagonal http://www.jspec.jaxa.jp/e/activity/ikaros.html http://www.jspec.jaxa.jp/e/activity/images/ikaros/pic_07_l.jpg

that is honestly a little bit less impressive than I had hoped for ... this "just" 200 m2 ... our Furoshiki net had already 130m2 and we deployed it within 1 min under much worse conditions ...

google translate helps ;)

nice!

Even after reading this sentence: "NASA wants to put a photograph of your face on one of the remaining space shuttle missions and launch it into orbit." it's not clear to me what exactly they plan to do... anyone?

Wow, they even mentioned it in the news on the Polish radio yesterday... What I am curious is if they really take the physical (or at least digital) photo and name to the orbit, or is this just, as you called it, "symbolic" ...

It is usually for real. Sometimes it is on a plate or slab, sometimes on a DVD, ... I will have my name on STS-134 :-)

After reading the Hayabusa's story posted by Joris a while ago, I think that the only adequately epic final to conclude this awesome mission is that the capsule will land safely. And empty.

Interesting! I like the quote "Maybe China would allow that to be a one-way trip but, in Japan, it would have to be a return ticket" talking about a human mission ....

what a shame! ambition and innovation have not been fairly rewarded ...

I didn't have time yet. But formulating the failure with a MTBF or a FIT, you can easily imagine a more robust solution. Instead of one single burn, you would make several smaller burns - It will take more time and require more fuel though. Another "robust" approach is to consider weak stability boundary capture. Again it takes time, but chances of failure are lessen.

would be a pity indeed!

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries said Friday that it has succeeded in transmitting 10 kW of power through 500 m. An announcement that comes just after JAXA scientists reported one more breakthrough in the quest for Space Solar Power Systems (http://phys.org/news/2015-03-japan-space-scientists-wireless-energy.html). One step closer to Power Generation from Space/

from the press release (https://www.mhi-global.com/news/story/1503121879.html) "10 kilowatts (kW) of power was sent from a transmitting unit by microwave. The reception of power was confirmed at a receiver unit located at a distance of 500 meters (m) away by the illumination of LED lights, using part of power transmitted". So 10kW of transmission to light a few efficient LED lights??? In a 2011 report (https://www.mhi-global.com/company/technology/review/pdf/e484/e484017.pdf), MHI estimated this would generate the same electricity output as a 400-megawatt thermal plant - or enough to serve more than 150,000 homes during peak hours. The price? The same as publicly supplied power, according to its calculations. There are no results to boost these claims however. The main work they do now is focused on beam steering control. I guess the real application in mind is more targeted to terrestrial applications, eg wireless highway charging (http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120312-wireless-highway-to-charge-cars). With the distances so much shorter, leading to much smaller antenna's and rectenna's this makes much more sense to me to develop.