M-5
To keep up with the increasing demand on payload capability and to enable interplanetary missions anticipated in the late 1990s and beyond the year 2000, ISAS has initiated the M-V Iauncher development, a 3-stage, solid-propellant system capable of lifting 1.8 metric tons into a LEO of 250 km, . It has more than three times the launch capability of the M-S and enables missions to Mars, Venus, asteroids and beyond. It is the largest solid propellant rocket ever built in Japan and combines ISAS up-to-date results on solid propellant propulsion system, new light-weight materials and structures, flight control and guidance, aerodynamics. avionics. and others. Using M-V in this way, ISAS expands its observation and exploration envelope and these missions are expected to open a new Japanese space science era and to yield better understanding of the solar system in the coming ten years and beyond.
The first flight was planned for 1996 for launching the MUSES-B satellite into an elliptic orbit for VLBI (Very Long Base Interferometry) for radio astronomy. The second mission was to send the spacecraft LUNAR-A to the Moon for the purpose shooting three penetrators into the lunar surface. The third was to launch the PLANET-B Mars orbiter designed primarily to observe the geomagnetic field around Mars. The next was a satellite named ASTRO-E for the continuing X-ray astronomy program. These four missions were planned within the century. One mission was approved for shortly after the turn of the century, which was a challenging asteroid sample return mission named MUSES-C. It will carry sample from an asteroid surface back to the earth for the first time history.
The inaugural flight of the new M-5 was delayed until 1997, primarily due to technical difficulties. On 21 June 1994 the M-5 first stage motor was successfully tested at ISAS' Noshiro rocket testsite, and another test with a flight-design model was slated for 1995. Plans to employ extendable motor nozzles on both the second and third stages were scaled back to only the third-stage. Produced jointly by Nissan (motors and fairing) and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, the M5 will permit ISAS to undertake more ambitious scientific missions, particularly beyond Earth orbit (References 118-124).
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