Japanese Lunar Exploration Program the LUNAR-A mission, and a small data relay satellite. SELENE-3 aims to return about 100 grams of samples from the Moon surface. It will be launched around 2020. However, due to financial issues JAXA is currently facing, this mission may be merged into the option-3 of SELENE-X. SELENE-X will be launched in the late 2010s, in view of Japan’s participation in Humans Lunar Activities foreseen. The SELENE-X may perform either of the following demonstrations: There are other options under study, and will be determined after the international exploration strategy has been clarified. MELOS (Mars Exploration with Lander-Orbiter Synergy) is a
Lunar orbit of particular interest in exploration of the Moon, but suffer from gravitational perturbation effects that make most unstable, and leave only a few orbital inclinations possible for indefinite "frozen orbits", useful for long-term stays in LLO. The Soviet Union sent the first spacecraft to the vicinity of the Moon, the robotic vehicle Luna 1, on January 4, 1959. It passed within of the Moon's surface, but did not achieve lunar orbit. Luna 3, launched on October 4, 1959, was the first robotic spacecraft to complete a circumlunar free return trajectory, still not a lunar orbit, but a figure-8 trajectory which