A Japanese space probe has successfully maneuvered to enter an orbit around Venus, but it took it 5 years to manage that feat after missing its first opportunity.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Akatsuki probe, launched in May 2010, was set to orbit Venus and explore its hostile atmosphere in December of 2010 when a malfunction in its main engine threw it off course, missing its short window of opportunity to enter the correct orbit.
After 5 years of spiraling around the sun, the probe approached Venus once again and JAXA scientists ordered the probe to fire its four small thrusters to put it in position around the cloud-shrouded planet.
"It's in orbit!" said Sanjay Limaye, a University of Wisconsin-Madison planetary scientist and mission participant. "Everyone is very happy."
The small thrusters were used because the main engine remains damaged from the 2010 malfunction, JAXA officials said.
The exact details of Akatsuki's orbit are still being determined, they said.
"The orbiter is now in good health," the agency said in a release. "We are currently measuring and calculating its orbit after the operation. It will take a few days to estimate the orbit, thus we will announce the operation result once it is determined."
If all goes well, the probe will begin peering through the thick, clouded atmosphere of Venus using ultraviolet and infrared imaging from its five cameras, along with radio signals, to map the planet's weather patterns.
Scientists must now determine if the $300 million Akatsuki, also known as the Venus Climate Orbiter, is still fully functional after its unanticipated 5-year journey in space, which is far more than its designed life expectancy of 2 years.
During that time, the probe went much closer to the sun than had been planned. That proximity may have heated and harmed some of its onboard instruments and equipment, which might limit its operations in orbit, scientists say.
They won't know until those operations begin, they acknowledge.
"It's been quite a long period of waiting," says Masato Nakamura, JAXA project manager at the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science.
The Japanese spacecraft could offer the only opportunity to study Venus from close range for the foreseeable future. A European Space Agency probe, the Venus Express, ceased working a year ago after circling the planet for eight years, and while NASA has shortlisted two Venus probes as candidates for its next Discovery-class mission, that would not launch until 2020.
