Exploration of the Moon with the Hiten spacecraft, becoming the third country to place an object in orbit around the Moon. The spacecraft released the Hagoromo probe into lunar orbit, but the transmitter failed, thereby preventing further scientific use of the spacecraft. In September 2007, Japan launched the SELENE spacecraft, with the objectives "to obtain scientific data of the lunar origin and evolution and to develop the technology for the future lunar exploration", according to the JAXA official website. The European Space Agency launched a small, low-cost lunar orbital probe called SMART 1 on September 27, 2003. SMART 1's primary goal was to take
European Venus Explorer European Venus Explorer The European Venus Explorer (EVE), known until 2007 as the Venus Entry Probe (VEP), is a proposed European Space Agency space probe to Venus. In the timeline of the 2005 TRS (technology reference study), the spacecraft was proposed to be launched on a Soyuz-2/Fregat launch vehicle around 2013. However, requests to fund and develop the spacecraft in 2007 and 2010 were rejected. EVE was an Medium-Class mission proposal in the Cosmic Vision programme. The mission concept consitsted of an orbiter and balloon which would circumnavigate the planet over the course of one week, and a lander probe