Japanese Lunar Exploration Program km on opposite sides of the lunar body. The penetrators were to have been braked by a small rocket at an altitude of 25 km, then free fall to the surface. They were designed to withstand a collision speed of 330 meters per second to deeply penetrate the lunar regolith. Once the penetrators are deployed, the LUNAR-A spacecraft was mission-planned to maneuver to an orbital altitude of 200 km above the lunar surface. The craft was to have carried a monochromatic imaging camera with a resolution of 30 m. It was to be Japan's first large scale lunar probe. (Hiten
September 1996 lunar eclipse dark mare. This is the second of four lunar year eclipses at the ascending node of the moon's orbit. September 1996 lunar eclipse A total lunar eclipse took place on Friday, September 27, 1996, the second of two lunar eclipses in 1996, the first being on Thursday, April 4. It was part of Lunar Saros 127. The eclipse started at 0:13:59 UTC, the greatest was at 2:54:22 and ended at 5:34:51. Its length of totality lasted more than 1 hours and 9 minutes. This is the 41st member of Lunar Saros 127. The previous event is the September 1978 lunar