French Federation of Speleology French Federation of Speleology The French Federation of Speleology (, FFS), is a French organisation that represents all persons practicing or studying caving and canyoning and promotes the study and conservation of caves. It was formed in 1963 by the amalgamation of two organisations, the (CNS), or National Committee of Speleology, and the (SSF), or Speleological Society of France. Founded by Édouard-Alfred Martel in 1895, the was the first organisation of its kind in Europe. Between 1895 and 1900 the society published a journal entitled "Spelunca". The society folded in 1914 at the start of World War I. After the
Exploration of the Moon with the Hiten spacecraft, becoming the third country to place an object in orbit around the Moon. The spacecraft released the Hagoromo probe into lunar orbit, but the transmitter failed, thereby preventing further scientific use of the spacecraft. In September 2007, Japan launched the SELENE spacecraft, with the objectives "to obtain scientific data of the lunar origin and evolution and to develop the technology for the future lunar exploration", according to the JAXA official website. The European Space Agency launched a small, low-cost lunar orbital probe called SMART 1 on September 27, 2003. SMART 1's primary goal was to take