Sakigake

MS-T5

Mission Profile

Sakigake (MS-T5) was Japan's first deep space spacecraft and the world's first interplanetary mission by a country other than the US or USSR, launched on 7 January 1985 aboard a Mu-3S2 rocket. The small spacecraft, primarily a technology demonstrator, carried solar wind instruments to characterize the space environment ahead of Japan's Suisei spacecraft and to test deep space navigation techniques. Sakigake passed Halley's Comet at a distance of 7 million km on 11 March 1986, making low-energy plasma and wave measurements of the comet's distant environment. The mission proved Japan's technical capability in interplanetary navigation and spacecraft systems engineering, paving the way for subsequent JAXA science missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.