Japan Station: the Japanese Experiment Module (Kibo) was added to the station during Space Shuttle assembly flights in 2008. The space probe "Akatsuki" was launched May 20, 2010, and achieved orbit around Venus on December 9, 2015. Japan's plans in space exploration include: developing the "Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter" to be launched in 2018; and building a moon base by 2030. On September 14, 2007, it launched lunar explorer SELENE (Selenological and Engineering Explorer) on a H-IIA (Model H2A2022) carrier rocket from Tanegashima Space Center. SELENE is also known as Kaguya, after the lunar princess of "The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter".
Orbital Mechanics for Engineering Students Control theory and spacecraft control systems are less thoroughly covered. The textbook includes exercises at the end of each chapter, and supplemental material is available online, including MATLAB code for orbital mechanics projects. Orbital Mechanics for Engineering Students Orbital Mechanics for Engineering Students is an aerospace engineering textbook by Howard D. Curtis, in its third edition . The book provides an introduction to orbital mechanics, while assuming an undergraduate-level background in physics, rigid body dynamics, differential equations, and linear algebra. Topics covered by the text include a review of kinematics and Newtonian dynamics, the two-body problem, Kepler's laws of planetary