Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (Jaxa) has announced its plan to launch a moon probing satellite on September 13 for full-scale exploration of the surface and bowels of the Moon, Itar-Tass reported. The moon-probing satellite was named "Kaguya" after the name of a princess symbolizing the Moon in the Japanese folk tales. The satellite is planned to keep on turning round the Moon at the altitude of around 100 kilometers for a year. The satellite is provided with numerous apparatuses capable to take pictures of pieces of the Moon rock up to ten meters long in three dimensions and probe into the Moon surface to the depth of five kilometers by means of radars. This is hoped to provide detailed information about chemical components of the Moon rock and measure gravitation force on the other side of the Moon not seen from the Earth. "The Kaguya" will be launched into space by the most powerful Japanese rocket - H2A from Tanegashima Space Center in the south of Japan. The launching of the moon probe satellite heralds a first stage in an ambitious program of the Moon exploration. The program envisages that in 20 years' time, Japan will have its own monitoring station on the Moon, where people will live and work side by side with robots.
