Japan Launches Suisei, Bound to Meet the Comet of the Century

From the Japanese isles comes report of the successful launching, six days past, of the probe Suisei -- 'Comet,' in their tongue -- the first vessel of that nation ever dispatched into the deep reaches beyond the moon's sphere. The craft is intended to meet with the great comet named for the astronomer Halley, which draws nearer the sun with every passing month and is expected by the spring of the coming year to grace the heavens as it has not done in some five and seventy years.

So precise was the aim of the Japanese engineers that a correction of course planned for but four days after the launch was found unnecessary and was cancelled outright, the probe already true upon her path. She joins in this errand the European vessel Giotto, dispatched in July, and Japan's own earlier craft Sakigake, launched in the January past, in what the learned have taken to calling an armada of the nations sent out to meet the wandering star.

What intelligence the probe may gather of the comet's substance and composition must await her arrival in the spring, but the gentlemen of the Royal Society and their counterparts abroad profess great anticipation of the discoveries to come.