This article or section documents a scheduled or expected spaceflight.
Details may change as the launch date approaches or more information becomes available.
Selene-2 is a proposed Japanese moon lander as a successor to the 2007 SELENE (Kaguya) moon orbiter. JAXA hopes to put this mission into its budget for next fiscal year and to launch Selene-2 either in 2012 or 2013 with the H-2A. It is planned that Selene-2 will also carry a rover. The proposed landing side is the sunlit portion of the Polar region. However the exact configuration has not yet been announced.
The main objectives of the mission are:
Test of landing technology
Investigating the origin of the moon
Penetrators
One option JAXA is investigating now, is to integrate a small data relay satellite and penetrators into the mission. [1] Originally the penetrators were supposed to be part of the LUNAR-A mission, but development took more time than planned. Despite all these troubles JAXA is making progress now with its penetrator technology. The final test is anticipated for July 2007.
Mission Timeline
Tests of the landing gear were already done during 1999. [2]
