Posted: Sun, Jul 22, 2007, 10:17 AM ET (1417 GMT)
Next month's scheduled launch of a Japanese lunar probe has been postponed to correct a technical problem with the spacecraft. The Japanese space agency JAXA announced Friday that the launch of the Kaguya (formerly SELENE) spacecraft, scheduled for mid-August, would be postponed for an unspecified time. In a statement, JAXA reported that engineers had found that a component on another satellite was installed incorrectly, leading them to check Kaguya and find that a similar component was also incorrectly installed on two subsatellites that are part of the overall Kaguya spacecraft. No timetable for rescheduling the launch has been announced. Kaguya is an orbiter designed to study a wide variety of characteristics of the Moon, including its surface composition, gravitational field, and the particle environment.

Related Links:

•  AP article
•  JAXA press release