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
VA spacecraft Cargo Block, it never served in its intended role as a lunar or Almaz crew vehicle when the programs was canceled, and neither was it ever launched together with an Almaz space station. VA was the first spacecraft to be launched into orbit twice, as Kosmos 929 was recovered and launched again as Kosmos 998. Gemini 2 was launched into space twice, but both launches were suborbital. The VA spacecraft was initially designed as part of the LK-1 manned lunar flyby spacecraft and then the LK-700 spacecraft, but got later repurposed for the Almaz space station program. First work on