https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22830513-800-japanese-akatsuki-probe-enters-venus-orbit-after-inspired-hack/
In October 2011, the team commanded Akatsuki to dump all the fuel for the broken thrusters, making it lighter. Then they reprogrammed the secondary thrusters to put the satellite on course to rendezvous with Venus in 2015.

On Monday, the moment came. The thrusters fired for 20 minutes, and Akatsuki now appears to be in orbit around Venus, JAXA said in a statement. However, it will take a few days to properly determine the orbit, the agency says. There are also some concerns about the condition of Akatsuki’s instruments, which might have been damaged by heat on the sunward journey. JAXA’s next update should be released on 9 December.

>>JAXA’s next update should be released on 9 December.

Jolly good.

9th Dec update.

We have already received images from three instruments whose function has already been confirmed, namely the Ultraviolet Imager (UVI), the Longwave IR camera (LIR), and the 1μm camera (IR1).

We will check the function of the three other scientific mission instruments and perform initial observation for about three months while gradually adjusting the orbit for shifting its elliptical orbit to the period of about nine days. The regular operation is scheduled to start in April, 2016.

Http://global.jaxa.jp/projects/sat/planet_c/

Second Dec 9 update
http://global.jaxa.jp/press/2015/12/20151209_akatsuki.html
As a result of measuring and calculating the AKATSUKI’s orbit after its thrust ejection, the orbiter is now flying on the elliptical orbit at the apoapsis altitude of about 440,000 km and periapsis altitude of about 400 km from Venus. The orbit period is 13 days and 14 hours. We also found that the orbiter is flying in the same direction as that of Venus’s rotation.

The AKATSUKI is in good health.
We will deploy the three scientific mission instruments namely the 2μm camera (IR2), the Lightning and Airglow Camera (LAC) and the Ultra-Stable oscillator (USO) and check their functions. JAXA will then perform initial observations with the above three instruments…

JAXA hasn’t had much success with its inter-planetary spacecraft. The one to Mars had a thruster defect, which meant that in order to get it to Mars they had to use up all the fuel, then deflect it sideways because there was no fuel left to stop it crashing into Mars, so it’s now in orbit around the Sun. This one to Venus had a thruster defect as well. And we all know about Hayabusa at asteroid Itokawa, it returned an almost empty sample.

But at least Japan has been more successful than Russia. Of thirteen? Russian spacecraft to Mars, not one has worked perfectly.

Please see the current thread on this topic

http://tokyo3.org/forums/holiday/?main=http%3A//tokyo3.org/forums/holiday/topics/6310/

dv said:

Please see the current thread on this topic

http://tokyo3.org/forums/holiday/?main=http%3A//tokyo3.org/forums/holiday/topics/6310/

Ta. Saw the start of that thread but missed the later addition.