Overview
- The agency executed the termination procedure at 9:00 a.m. JST on September 18, formally ending operations of the Venus Climate Orbiter Akatsuki.
- Contact was lost in late April 2024 during a prolonged lower-precision attitude-control mode, and efforts to restore communications were unsuccessful.
- Launched on May 21, 2010 aboard H-IIA No. 17, Akatsuki overcame a main engine failure to enter Venus orbit in December 2015 as Japan’s first planetary orbiter beyond Earth.
- The mission delivered over eight years of continuous atmospheric observations, including discoveries of large stationary gravity waves, insights into super-rotation, and the first application of data assimilation to Venus.
- With Akatsuki retired, there is currently no spacecraft orbiting Venus, with new missions planned by space agencies in the coming years.