From Jupiter to the Sun, Japan Now Observing Venus with Climate Orbiter Akatsuki

While most space agencies such as NASA, ESA, SpaceX and the China National Space Administration are preoccupied with their missions to Mars, Japan is looking in another direction, at Venus. Their sole Climate orbiter, Akatsuki, had already arrived on Jupiter after overcoming glitches from its launch in 2010.

The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said that the $300 million Akatsuki mission and their IKAROS Interplanetary kite-craft arrived in Venus orbit last December 2015 and is currently performing another task at this time.

Akatsuki circled the sun for five years before aiming for Venus. It is equipped with five cameras to enable the spacecraft to perform its duty, which is to orbit and observe the planet.

Considering Mars' proximity to Earth, it is surprising that JAXA decided to invest in exploring Venus instead. According to Takeshi Imamura, Project Scientist of the Akatsuki, Venus is very different from Earth and Mars, and that's what makes it interesting. "Venus is the same kind of solid-rock planet as Earth, and does not differ much from it in size or mass. Therefore, we think that the composition of its atmosphere at birth may have closely resembled that of Earth. But Venus's current environment is completely different. Earth's atmosphere is composed mainly of nitrogen and oxygen, whereas Venus's is almost completely carbon dioxide, and its skies are covered with thick sulfuric acid clouds."

After arriving in Venus last December, Akatsuki started its second phase of the exploration this April. "We have been testing its six observation instruments and performing initial observations. When we start using a camera, for example, we can make adjustments such as changing the exposure," Imamoto added.

Since the arrival of Akatsuki, there were photographs beamed back to Earth for scientific interpretation. Imamoto added they were able to come up with interesting findings based on the photos by Akatsuki. "We can see a bow-like white pattern from the northern hemisphere to the southern hemisphere, straddling the equatorial area...how a band structure can run from north to south is a puzzle. We never imagined that we would see this kind of thing"

Akatsuki is the second interplanetary mission from Japan. It's not that they aren't interested with Mars; they were even one of the first agencies to aim for the red planet. But their attempt to orbit Mars with the Nozomi Mars probe failed in 2003. After that, they dedicated their next mission to the Akatsuki and Venus climate orbiter. With the capable technologies of different space agencies, it is possible that mankind will be able to explore and observe the nearest planets in this lifetime. The question for Japan is after Venus, what comes next?