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This database contains information concerning Japan's first retrievable spacecraft, the Space Flyer Unit (SFU), and the post-flight investigation following its first mission.

The SFU was developed as a free-flying space platform by an inter-ministerial project team consisting of Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) of the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture (MOE), the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organisation (NEDO), the institute for Unmanned Space Experiment Free Flyer (USEF) of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) and the National Space Development Agency (NASDA) of the Science and Technology Agency (STA).

When assembled the SFU is octagonal in shape, with a diameter of 4.46 metres and a height of 3.0 metres. Its first mission mission objectives included the verification of flight systems, environmental validation for the follow-on SFU missions, the implementation of scientific, engineering and observation experiments, and finally the successful retrieval of the spacecraft.

Launch date 18th March 1995 (via a HII rocket)
Operational altitude 482 km
Inclination 28.5º.
LEO excursion ~301 days (26 million seconds)
Retrieval 13th January 1996 (via STS-72)

Sun-pointing attitude with top deck (EFFU) facing the Sun (face shown in the grapple image

During the retrieval operation, the Solar Array Panels were jettisoned owing to a confirmation failure in the latching mechanism, and so a large area available for post-flight activities was lost. The image below shows the SFU pointing and attitude such that flux data derived from the PFA can be readily associated with given directions.
The menu on the left-hand side details the pages available for browsing at this time.

these as and when data becomes available. The data included in this site can be used freely by anyone to develop further their understanding of the near-Earth space environment, and in particular the hypervelocity impact properties of thermal control materials such as
Teflon and Kapton, which are still poorly understood quantitatively.	SFU orbital and attitude information (click) to enlarge).

Of the various acronyms that you will see recurring throughout our Web site, mainly dealing with SFU payload facilities, the main ones are "MLI" and "SSM".