Hagoromo

Description

Hagoromo, named for the veil worn by the legendary Buddhist angel Hiten, was deployed in the vicinity of the Moon by the Hiten (1990-007A, formerly Muses A) engineering satellite and intended to go into lunar orbit. Hagoromo was a 12 kg, 26-faced polyhedron, 36 cm between opposite faces. A solid propellant (KM-L) retrorocket with a mass of 4 kg was mounted inside the spacecraft for orbit insertion. Sixteen surfaces were covered with 1000 sheets of indium-phosphorus solar cells which could generate about 10 W of power. Two-way communications with a ground station were provided by an S-band transponder and an omni-directional cross-dipole antenna mounted on top of the orbiter. No scientific instrumentation was included, only housekeeping data such as temperature were transmitted.

Hagoromo was mounted on the Hiten spacecraft and the two were launched on 24 January 1990. The S-band transmitter on Hagoromo failed on 21 February 1990 making contact impossible. Hagoromo was released from Hiten as they approached their first lunar encounter at 19:37 UT on 18 March 1990 (4:37 19 March JST). The ignition of the Hagoromo deceleration rocket was confirmed by ground observation at 20:04:03 UT and an orbit of 7400 x 20000 km orbit with a period of 2.01 days was estimated, but never confirmed, so it is not known if Hagoromo actually entered lunar orbit. No data were returned because of the transmitter failure. (Hagoromo is referred to as Hagomoro in some sources).