The $300 million spacecraft was launched in 2010, but the mission failed to enter Venus’ orbit on the first attempt due to a failure of the main engine — «Akatsuki» for five years, orbiting the Sun until it finally approached the planet.
The main mission of «Akatsuki» (also known as the Venus Climate Orbiter) is to study the climate of Venus, but it may now be terminated as JAXA reports about the loss of communication. The team, according to the message, is making efforts to restore it — to do this, they need to correct the orientation of the vehicle and turn the antenna toward the Earth.
«Akatsuki», whose name means «dawn» in Japanese, has generally accomplished its mission and entered an extended phase of operation in 2018. During this time, the device has suffered repeated failures, and at the end of 2016, two of its five cameras had to be shut down due to unexplained power fluctuations to avoid depleting the power grid.
At the same time, during its 14 years of operation (instead of the expected 4.5), «Akatsuki» made several important discoveries, including revealing details of the phenomenon of superrotation (when the atmosphere of Venus rotates much faster than the planet itself), as well as detecting gravitational waves and heat tides that affect the planet’s surface, and providing infrared images of the planet.
New missions, in particular from NASA, the European Space Agency, India, and the private Rocket Lab, may go to Venus later this decade.