Akatsuki, Japan’s Venus orbiter, has been declared dead after JAXA lost contact in April 2024 and concluded recovery was unlikely. Launched in 2010 and rescued into Venus orbit in 2015 after an initial engine failure, the $300 million probe returned eight years of useful data and contributed to about 178 scientific papers. Several instruments degraded over time, but four remained active until communications ceased. NASA’s DAVINCI and VERITAS missions and ESA’s EnVision are planned to revisit Venus in the 2030s, though schedules depend on funding.
Japan’s Akatsuki Venus Orbiter Declared Dead — Earth Loses Its Last Active Link to Venus
Akatsuki, Japan’s Venus orbiter, has been declared dead after JAXA lost contact in April 2024 and concluded recovery was unlikely. Launched in 2010 and rescued into Venus orbit in 2015 after an initial engine failure, the $300 million probe returned eight years of useful data and contributed to about 178 scientific papers. Several instruments degraded over time, but four remained active until communications ceased. NASA’s DAVINCI and VERITAS missions and ESA’s EnVision are planned to revisit Venus in the 2030s, though schedules depend on funding.
22:08, 02.11.2025Science
Akatsuki officially retired after communications loss
Japan’s Akatsuki spacecraft — the country’s first successful planetary explorer — has been officially declared dead by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) after mission teams concluded that reestablishing contact is unlikely. JAXA lost communication with Akatsuki in April 2024 and has now ceased recovery operations.
From rocky start to long scientific run
Launched in 2010 as the Venus Climate Orbiter (often called Akatsuki), the roughly cube-shaped probe measured about five feet on each side and carried six science instruments. An engine failure during its initial Venus approach left the spacecraft drifting around the Sun for five years, but engineers executed a recovery plan that successfully placed Akatsuki into Venus orbit in 2015.
Despite two infrared cameras failing in 2016, the mission far outlived its planned 4.5-year lifetime. Akatsuki delivered eight years of usable observations that supported roughly 178 peer-reviewed papers and substantially improved our understanding of Venusian atmospheric dynamics, including super-rotating winds and cloud-layer phenomena.
Legacy and context
Akatsuki represented humanity’s closest continuous presence at Venus and marked a milestone for Japan’s space program. Historically, seven other orbiters have circled Venus: four Soviet missions, two from the United States, and one from the European Space Agency (ESA). ESA’s Venus Express preceded Akatsuki as the most recent orbiter until contact was lost with Venus Express in 2014.
What’s next for Venus exploration
Several missions are planned to return to Venus in the 2030s. NASA intends to send DAVINCI (aiming for a 2030 launch) to study the atmosphere and perform a descent probe, and VERITAS (targeting around 2031) to map the surface from orbit. The European Space Agency is also developing EnVision, an orbiter planned for the 2030s to investigate Venus’s atmosphere, surface and interior. All of these missions remain subject to funding approval and scheduling, so timelines could shift.
Bottom line: Akatsuki exceeded expectations, returned a rich scientific dataset, and handed the baton to future planned missions that will continue exploring why Venus evolved so differently from Earth.