Japan has been forced to abandon its first ever interplanetary space mission after failing to correct an onboard electrical fault with its Mars probe Nozomi.

 

Nozomi was scheduled to arrive in orbit around Mars in late December 2003 but will now be manoeuvred away from its target. This is to prevent it from crashing into the planet's surface and potentially contaminating it with Earth microbes. Scientists hope to find evidence that Mars once harboured life, or perhaps even that it still does.

 

The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) announced on Tuesday that it had been unable to correct a short circuit aboard Nozomi and would have to forsake its Mars mission.

 

Full Article Here

Bit of a shame really, I was quite hoping that they'd fix it, and a bit of a blow for their space programme I expect.

The Japanese must be embarrased! (Or they should be)

I daresay they are, but I don't know why they should be. They've had a lot of bad luck with that probe according to the article, it's just a shame it didn't complete what it was sent out to do.

It's sad it happened but seems to reinforce why we haven't sent a manned mission yet. We have the technology but there still are a lot of bugs to be worked out before I'd want to trust a life.

I can't wait for the January rovers.

Just aman