Space travel and exploration are no longer restricted to U.S. astronauts and Russian cosmonauts. European countries have a high level of involvement through the European Space Agency (ESA). There are other countries who have either contributed to and benefited from space technology, including Canada, Japan, Australia, Ireland, India, China, Israel, Indonesia, Malaysia and some South American countries.
Japanese probe to HalleyΓÇÖs Comet: Sakigake made an Earth swingby on January 8, 1992. This was the first planet swingby for a Japanese spacecraft. During the approach, Sakigake observed the magnetosphere. The second Earth swingby was on June 14, 1993, and the third on October 28, 1994.
Japan/U.S./England Solar Probe: Yohkoh (Japanese for sunbeam) was launched on August 30, 1991 to study the high-energy radiations from solar flares. The mission is a successor to Hinotori, which was launched in 1981.
The Yohkoh satellite is in a nearly-circular Earth orbit, with four instruments: two imagers and two spectrometers. Approximately 50 MB of data are accumulated per day, and stored on an on-board tape recorder. The Yohkoh mission is a cooperative mission of Japan, the U.S., and England.
India: India has put five satellites in orbit in the past nine years, making this country the operator of one of the worldΓÇÖs most-active civilian remote-sensing programs. Recently, India successfully launched a new four-stage rocket carrying an Earth resources satellite IRS-P3. The satellite was placed into a 500- mile (800-km) orbit, carrying scanner and X-ray equipment. The satellite imagery is being marketed outside of India by a U.S. company.
Canada: CanadaΓÇÖs major pollution detector in space is scheduled to launch in the summer of 1998. It will measure the amount of pollution in the troposphere. This will be the Canadian Space AgencyΓÇÖs (CSA) biggest contribution to NASAΓÇÖs mission to study the EarthΓÇÖs environmental processes. The MOPITT probe will be launched on board the first of NASAΓÇÖs Earth Observation System (EOS) satellites.
During the course of its five-year flight, MOPITT will continuously scan below it to provide the world with the first long-term, global measurements of carbon monoxide and methane gas levels in the lower atmosphere. These and other data will be used by scientist to predict long-term effects of pollution.
Other commercial satellites include MalaysiaΓÇÖs Measat 1 and 2, the countryΓÇÖs first television satellites, IndonesiaΓÇÖs Palapa C-1 and C-2, CanadaΓÇÖs communications satellite M-Sat 1, ItalyΓÇÖs astronomy satellite BeppoSAX, IsraelΓÇÖs AMOS satellite, and two communications satellites from Saudi Arabia and one from Turkey.
South America: Chile, Brazil and Argentina are continuing to press ahead with efforts to expand their space launch and operations capability by the turn of the century. ChileΓÇÖs plans to become the fourth space-faring nation in Latin America -- Argentina, Brazil and Mexico already operate satellites -- had suffered a setback on August 31, 1995, when its satellite Fasat-Alfa was lost after its launch on a Ukrainian Tsiklon-3. Argentina launched its Microsat on August 29 on a Russian Molniya- M rocket, which also carried the Czech Republic payload Magion 5, while MexicoΓÇÖs UNAMSat was carried into space on a Russian Kosmos-3M.
