Space Probe to Mars Is Launched

Japan successfully launched its first interplanetary probe to Mars on a mission that hopes to gather further evidence on whether the Red Planet could once have been warm enough to support life. The launch of the probe, known as Planet-B, by Japan’s most powerful rocket takes the country into an elite space club; only the United States and Russia have previously sent out interplanetary spacecraft. The probe, carrying 14 kinds of experiments and instruments developed by five countries, will reach Mars in October 1999. Today’s launch date was partly chosen because it is the first anniversary of the landing on Mars of the U.S.-built Pathfinder probe. But unlike Pathfinder, which broadcast data from the surface of Mars, Planet-B will do all its work from high above the planet.