Posted: Fri, May 21, 2010, 7:47 AM ET (1147 GMT)
An H-2A rocket successfully launched a Venus orbiter mission and a small solar sail demonstrator early Friday. The H-2A lifted off from the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan at 5:58 pm EDT Thursday (2158 GMT Thursday, 6:58 am local time Friday) and released the Akatsuki and Ikaros spacecraft 27 and a half minutes later. Akatsuki ("Dawn"), formerly known as Planet-C, will enter orbit around Venus late this year on a mission to study the planet's dense atmosphere and its weather patterns. Ikaros will deploy a 20-meter-long solar sail to demonstrate the ability of the sail to accelerate and navigate. The launch was postponed three days because of poor weather at the launch site.
