Japan probe reaches Venus but shuts itself down

reply to post by jra

I just have heard of too many space probles going into SAFE MODE only to stay there for good, MISSION OVER.
If they can get it back on line that is great but I am not holding my breathe for it. I wish them luck and only time will tell.
And why not have a SAFE MODE with auto reboot so after a time delay it reboots by its self and ground control does not have to do any thing.

Originally posted by fixer1967
And why not have a SAFE MODE with auto reboot so after a time delay it reboots by its self and ground control does not have to do any thing.

I wondered about that myself. My guess is that it's because it doesn't go into safe mode for no reason, therefore there was a problem. They might not want it to reboot without running some diagnostics first to see what the problem was. Wiki has a few comments about safe mode:

en.wikipedia.org...

Recovery
Recovery from safe mode involves reestablishing communication between the spacecraft and mission control, downloading any diagnostic data and sequencing power back on to the various subsystems to resume the mission. The recovery time can be anywhere from a few hours to days or weeks depending on the difficulty in reestablishing communications, conditions found on the spacecraft, distance to the spacecraft and the nature of the mission.[5]

Supression
The spacecraft's ability to enter safe mode may be suppressed during periods of crucial spacecraft operations, such as during the orbit insertion rocket firing at Saturn of the Cassini spacecraft, where if a critical failure were to occur during this operation most if not all of the mission objectives would be lost anyway.[

What ever happened to this? Did it ever wake up? I want some Venus photos, pronto!

Personally I'd also love to see some pictures from this probe.But I'm still of the opinion that it's pretty amazing that we can get probes anywhere near planets like Mars and Venus.

Space exploration is still very young so mistakes are going to be made and hopefully they'll be learned from. I'd love it if it landed on Venus and when they turned it on there was a life form waving back. But if it doesn't happen then Japan has spent a lot of money on a learning curve surely that's the whole point of our existence is to improve.

Hats off to Japan I say.

i don't know if this was mentioned or not, but Japan's President's wife claimed she was taken by aliens to the planet Venus:

Japan’s next prime minister is known for being bland in his speeches. His wife, however, is anything but.

Miyuki Hatoyama, a former actress and wife of Yukio Hatoyama—who will likely be sworn in as Japan’s prime minister on Sept 16—promises to become one of Japan’s most colorful first ladies ever.

A strong believer in spiritualism, Hatoyama said in a TV appearance earlier this year she met U.S. actor Tom Cruise—in a previous life. She also claims that her soul has traveled to Venus on a UFO.

www.japantoday.com...

COINCIDENCE??? Maybe the probe stopped by Venus to drop off the Prime Minister's Wife!!

Originally posted by BeastMaster2012
What ever happened to this? Did it ever wake up? I want some Venus photos, pronto!

Well we're not going to get any unfortunately. Not for a while anyway. It never made it into orbit due to an issue with its thruster.

However JAXA is looking at the idea of sending Akatsuki to two asteroids near Venus, before trying again to get in to Venusian orbit.