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Japan plans to build space probe for Mercury mission

Posted on: Tuesday, 24 June 2003, 06:00 CDT

TOKYO (AP) -- Japan is planning to build a probe to orbit Mercury in a joint venture with the European Space Agency to map the planet's surface and study its origins, a space official said Wednesday.

The probe would be one of three in the proposed venture, with the Europeans building the other two.

They are to be launched atop Russian Soyuz rockets in two space shots starting in 2010 and would reach Mercury about four years later, with one of them landing on the planet, and the other two orbiting and charting its surface for a year.

Japan embarked on its first interplanetary exploration with the 1998 launching of its Nozomi, or Hope, probe to Mars. It has been plagued by technical problems and made its final flyby of the Earth just last week. It should reach the red planet by year's end.

For the Mercury venture, Japan would chip in 13.5 billion yen (US$115 million) and Europe would contribute 60 billion yen (US$513 million), said Masahiko Sawabe of Japan's education and science ministry.

The goal of the mission is to study the planet's surface and environment and try to unlock the mysteries of how the planet evolved.

A ministry subcommittee recommended that the ministry push ahead with further mission development and the proposal is to be reviewed for approval at a panel hearing next Monday, Sawabe said.

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