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
Explorer 19 Explorer 19 Explorer 19 was an American satellite launched on December 19, 1963, as part of NASA's Explorers program. It was the third of six identical Explorer satellites launched to study air density and composition, and the second to reach orbit. It was identical to Explorer 9. The second of six identical air density research satellites to be launched, Explorer 9 was the first to successfully reach orbit. It was still operational when the next satellite, Explorer 19, was launched, allowing simultaneous readings to be taken and compared. The spacecraft consisted of alternating layers of aluminium foil and Mylar polyester