Hinode (???, Japanese: "Sunrise"; English pronunciation: hee-no-day), formerly known as Solar-B, is a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Solar mission with United States and United Kingdom collaboration.

It is the follow-up to the Yohkoh ("Solar-A") mission and it was launched on the final flight of the M-V rocket from Uchinoura Space Center, Japan on September 22, 2006 at 21:36 GMT.

Photo: The satellite weighs approximately 700 kg (dry) with some 170 kg of thruster gas for maintaining a polar, sun-synchronous orbit for more than two years. Two solar panels will provide 1000 watts of power. (Source: NASA.)

Hinode is a leg of Around the World in 80 Telescopes tour: Click to play; click  (lower right) to view video full screen Next stop: ORM (previous stop: IRAM)

Initial orbit was perigee height 280 km, apogee height 686 km, inclination 98.3 degrees. Then the satellite maneuvered to the quasi-circular sun-synchronous orbit over the day/night terminator, which allows near-continuous observation of the Sun. On October 28, the probe's instruments captured their first images. ^[1] 

Hinode's Mission: To Measure Solar Magnetic Fields.

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