JAXA: Japanese probe Fails to orbit Venus

Artist's concept of Akatsuki flying over Venus. Credit: Akihiro Ikeshita/JAXA Japan's Akatsuki spacecraft missed its chance Monday to enter orbit around Venus, and the next opportunity will not come for another six years, according to statements by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.

The $300 million unmanned mission was supposed to fire its primary thruster at 2349 GMT (6:49 p.m. EST) Monday. Officials anticipated a communications blackout of about 22 minutes during and after the engine burn, but ground controllers did not regain contact with the probe for more than 90 minutes.

When engineers heard from Akatsuki again, it was only communicating through a low-gain antenna and officials concluded the spacecraft was in safe mode but still alive.

After more than a day of analysis, JAXA finally declared the 1,000-pound probe failed to enter orbit around Venus as planned.

"We have found that the orbiter was not injected into the planned orbit as a result of orbit estimation," JAXA said in a statement Wednesday.