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
Selene Zeus to grant him eternal sleep. However, Apollodorus says that because of Endymion's "surpassing beauty, the Moon fell in love with him, and Zeus allowed him to choose what he would, and he chose to sleep for ever, remaining deathless and ageless". Cicero seems to make Selene responsible for Endymion's sleep, so that "she might kiss him while sleeping". From Pausanias we hear that Selene was supposed to have had by Endymion fifty daughters, who possibly represented the fifty lunar months of the Olympiad. Nonnus has Selene and Endymion as the parents of the beautiful Narcissus, but in other accounts,