The Institute of Space and Astronautical science (ISAUe) Japan, launched the first Japanese interplaetary spacecraft 'SAKIGAKE' (the former name was MS-T5) on January 8, 1985, as an engineering test spacecraft for ISAS's Planet-A mission for Halley's comet expooration. The main spacecraft, Planet-A has also launched on August,19, 1985, and was named 'SUISEI'. Both spacecraft will encounter Halley's comet in early March, 1986, at a distance of about 1.2 AU from the earth. The communications systems has operated, quite satifactorily since the launching of SAKIGAKE/SUISEI including the onboard units and the earth stations, and no major problems are expected in the remaining period of the SAKIGAKE/SUISEI missions. In this paper, the authors present the design and features of the communications system for SAKIGAKE/SUISEI, and the in-orbit performance of the communications system of both spacecraft.
SAKIGAKE/SUSEI communications system
Kommunikationssystem der Raumsonden SAKIGAKE und SUISEI
NEC Research and Development ; 81 ; 32-43
1986
12 Seiten, 18 Bilder, 10 Tabellen, 3 Quellen
Article (Journal)
English