"JAXA launched Akatsuki, a name that translates to "Dawn" in English, aboard one of its own H-IIA rockets in May 2010. The agency's plan was for the craft to enter Venus orbit in December of the same year, but the planned twelve-minute burn designed to achieve that outcome sputtered out after three minutes due to a failure of its main engine that left Akatsuki orbiting the Sun."
"Astroboffins tried using Akatsuki's remaining thrusters and engines to adjust its orbit so it could reach Venus, and after five years of work that effort succeeded when the craft nestled into orbit around Earth's nearest planetary neighbor December 2015. It started sending snaps a couple of days later. That outcome was a win, given JAXA designed Akatsuki to operate for four-and-a-half years."
Japan's Aerospace Exploration Agency launched Akatsuki aboard an H-IIA rocket in May 2010 to enter Venus orbit that December. A main-engine failure during the planned twelve-minute burn left Akatsuki in a heliocentric orbit. Engineers used remaining thrusters and, after five years, inserted the spacecraft into Venus orbit in December 2015, where it began transmitting images. Several cameras later developed electrical issues and two of five were shut down to protect the spacecraft. Akatsuki returned useful data used in hundreds of scholarly works. In April 2024 the spacecraft suffered an orbital stabilization glitch and contact was lost; recovery attempts failed and operations were terminated.
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