Muses A Lunar Orbiter (Hagoromo)

Muses A Lunar Orbiter (Hagoromo) [ISAS]

The Muses-A Lunar Orbiter (Hagoromo) was a 12 kg, 26-faced polyhedron, 36 cm between opposite faces. A solid propellant (KM-L) retrorocket with a mass of 4 kg was mounted inside the spacecraft for lunar orbit insertion. Sixteen of the surfaces were covered with 1000 sheets of indium-phosphorus solar cells which could generate about 10 W. Two way communications with a ground station were provided by an S-band transponder and an omni-directional cross-dipole antenna mounted on top of the orbiter. No scientific instrumentation was included, only housekeeping data such as temperature was transmitted. The transmitter malfunctioned on 21 February 1990, before lunar orbit insertion, and no data were transmitted after this time.