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
Japanese Lunar Exploration Program Engineering Explorer), nicknamed Kaguya after a lunar princess in the ancient Japanese folklore "The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter", is the second Japanese mission to the Moon. Launched in September 2007, it was "the largest lunar mission since the Apollo program". The mission featured three separate space craft, the main orbiter (Kaguya), the small relay satellite (Okina), and the VLBI satellite (Ouna). SELENE-2, also known as Kaguya-2, formerly known as SELENE-B, is the follow-on mission to Kaguya. SELENE-2 will consist from one large lander, which will have a small-sized rover, and if possible, will also have some penetrators inherited from