Comparison of Asian national space programs to fuel future energy demands in Asia. All three main Asian space powers plan to send men to the Moon in the distant future and have already sent lunar probes. Japan was the first Asian country to launch a lunar probe. The Hiten (Japanese: "flying angel") spacecraft (known before the launch as MUSES-A), built by the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science of Japan, was launched on 24 January 1990. In many ways, the mission did not go as was planned. Kaguya, the second Japanese lunar orbiter spacecraft, was launched on 14 September 2007. China launched its first lunar probe,
Explorer 36 for inclination-dependent terms established by the Explorer 29 (GEOS 1) gravimetric studies. The spacecraft was placed into a retrograde orbit to accomplish these objectives. Operational problems occurred in the main power system, optical beacon flash system, and the spacecraft clock, and adjustments in scheduling resulted in nominal operations. Explorer 36 Explorer 36 (also called GEOS 2 or GEOS B, acronym to Geodetic Earth Orbiting Satellite) was a U.S. satellite launched as part of the Explorers program, being the second of the two satellites GEOS. Explorer 36 was launched on January 11, 1968 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, with Delta rocket.