Comparison of Asian national space programs to fuel future energy demands in Asia. All three main Asian space powers plan to send men to the Moon in the distant future and have already sent lunar probes. Japan was the first Asian country to launch a lunar probe. The Hiten (Japanese: "flying angel") spacecraft (known before the launch as MUSES-A), built by the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science of Japan, was launched on 24 January 1990. In many ways, the mission did not go as was planned. Kaguya, the second Japanese lunar orbiter spacecraft, was launched on 14 September 2007. China launched its first lunar probe,
Lunar Orbital Station Lunar Orbital Station The Lunar Orbital Station is a proposed Russian space station in orbit around the Moon. The design was revealed in 2007 at a conference at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City. It is one of the two parts of the planned Russian lunar infrastructure, the other part being a base on the surface of the Moon. LOS will have six docking ports, high-power antenna for communications, maneuvering and attitude control engines, solar panels and a robotic arm, similar to the one developed by the European Space Agency for the Russian segment of the ISS. The