The Japanese Venus orbiter project (PLANET-C) started in 1999, and was approved by the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) in 2001. The project is dedicated to revealing Venusian atmospheric dynamics, which appear radically different to terrestrial atmospheric dynamics. After the 10-year development of the spacecraft, it was launched from Tanegashima Space Center on May 21, 2010. The spacecraft was named AKATSUKI. It arrived at Venus on December 7, 2010, but due to a malfunction of the thruster system, the Venus orbit insertion failed. Using the reaction control systems instead of the broken orbital maneuvering engine, the recovery maneuver was operated on December 7, 2015, and AKATSUKI was finally inserted into an orbit around Venus with a 0.36 million km apoapsis and a 10.5 day orbital period. AKATSUKI currently transmits important scientific data on a daily basis.
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