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LUNAR-A is a cancelled Japanesespacecraft project that was originally scheduled to be launched in August 2004. After many delays (primarily due to potential thruster faults[1], the project was eventually cancelled in January 2007.[2] It has been planned to be launched on a Japanese M-V rocket from the Kagoshima Space Center. The development of its seismic penetrators was planned to be continued the end of FY 2007. They[clarification needed] will reportedly be used on a future Russian mission, most likely Luna-Glob. JAXA also plans to use the penetrators on other targets.[citation needed]
The vehicle would have been cylindrical, with a diameter of 2.2 m and a height of 1.7 m. It would have had four solar panels and was engineered to be spin-stabilized. Plans called for it to enter an elliptical orbit around the Moon, and deploy two penetrators at an altitude of 40 km on opposite sides of the lunar body. The penetrators were to have been braked by a small rocket at an altitude of 25 km, then free fall to the surface. They were designed to withstand a collision speed of 330 meters per second to deeply penetrate the lunar regolith.
The penetrators were to have contained seismometers and heat-flow probes. They were designed to operate for a year, and would have transmitted data back to the orbiting craft. They were planned to observe lunar quakes and to determine if the Moon has a core. The lunar surface is considered nearly transparent at some[clarification needed] transmission frequencies, so the compressed signals would have been received from orbit.[citation needed]
Once the penetrators deployed, the LUNAR-A spacecraft was mission-planned to maneuver to an orbital altitude of 200 km above the lunar surface. The craft was to have carried a monochromatic imaging camera with a resolution of 30 m.
