HINOTORI (ASTRO-A)
JAXA/ISAS's HINOTORI (ASTRO-A) was a solar-observation mission launched on 1981-02-21 aboard M-3S-2 from Uchinoura. It imaged solar flares in hard X-rays and measured solar particles, X-ray bursts, gamma rays, and related plasma phenomena, contributing observations during the international solar-maximum campaign until operations ended on 1991-07-11.
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Identity
- Aliases
- HINOTORIASTRO-AHinotori Solar Observation Satellite
- Name
- HINOTORI (ASTRO-A)
- Status
- completed
Details
- Astronauts
- -
- Description
- JAXA/ISAS's HINOTORI (ASTRO-A) was a solar-observation mission launched on 1981-02-21 aboard M-3S-2 from Uchinoura. It imaged solar flares in hard X-rays and measured solar particles, X-ray bursts, gamma rays, and related plasma phenomena, contributing observations during the international solar-maximum campaign until operations ended on 1991-07-11.
- Destination
- Near-circular low Earth orbit at approximately 576 km perigee and 644 km apogee (31° inclination; 97-minute period)
- End Date
- 1991-07-11
- Launch Site
- Outcome
- Successful Japanese solar-physics mission. On the first day after normal operations began, HINOTORI observed a large solar flare, and a month later it had observed 41 flares of many sizes. JAXA says its X-ray observations revealed high-temperature phenomena reaching up to 50 million °C and clouds of electrons in the corona.
- Programs
- -
- Start Date
- 1981-02-21
- Vehicle Families
Links
Assets & Meta
- Creation Time
- August 15, 2026 at 22:53:01 UTC
- Updated Time
- September 8, 2026 at 13:39:44 UTC
Other
- Affiliations
- Space Stations
- -
- Vehicles