Japan's Asteroid Probe Cleared For Landing Attempt

LiveScience.com on yahoo ^ | 11/11/05 | Leonard Davis

[NormsRevenge]

Japan's Hayabusa spacecraft is on track to attempt a sampling of asteroid Itokawa on November 19.

In a rescheduled practice run on November 9, the craft has approached within 230 feet (70 meters) of the asteroid during a descent test that verified the probe's guidance and navigation functions.

Engineers handling the Hayabusa spacecraft have clarified the issues that led to the cancellation of a November 4 landing rehearsal. An onboard navigation computer detected anomalous information during the practice run. The problem resulted in an abort command being transmitted to the probe by Earth controllers, thereby stopping the rehearsal. Subsequently, the spacecraft fired its chemical engines and started ascent, backing away from the asteroid.

Mission officials are now prepared to carry out a landing at the "Muses Sea" site, performing sampling tasks on both November 19 and another touchdown on November 25, according to the web site of the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS), a space science research division arm of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

Return samples

Hayabusa is now ready for its historic attempt to gather and return asteroid specimens to Earth.

Imagery taken by Hayabusa has been used to target the craft to a touchdown location on asteroid Itokawa. One newly released image shows the shadow of the spacecraft cast upon the asteroid's surface.

Japan's Hayabusa roared off into space from Japan's Kagoshima Space Center on May 9, 2003. The spacecraft arrived at its asteroid target on September 12 of this year.

Not only is Hayabusa equipped to collect samples of the asteroid for return to Earth. A tiny robot will hop about Itokawa and relay pictures from the space rock's surface.

Plans call for the probe's return capsule carrying asteroid specimens to return to Earth in June 2007, landing by parachute in a remote desert spot in Woomera, Australia.

[RightWhale]

Are the Japanese getting hungry for space exploration? No doubt they will as China begins to gain some significant laurels in space.

[bert]

AWWWW Right Japan...... Great effort!!!

[Rightwing Conspiratr1]

The perturbations caused by the landing will likely result in jostling the asteroid out of it's orbit and hurtling towards the earth. Only Godzilla can save us.

[NormsRevenge]

Amazing Hayabusa images

http://www.planetary.org/

Nov. 10, 2005 | 10:36 PST | 18:36 UTC

These photos pretty much speak for themselves. They are amazing.

Click to enlarge >

Hayabusa's shadow on Itokawa
Hayabusa captured this photo of Itokawa as it passed between the Sun and the tiny asteroid on November 10, 2005. Hayabusa's shadow is visible on the surface of the asteroid -- a tiny spacecraft causing a tiny solar eclipse on a tiny object. Credit: ISAS / JAXA

Click to enlarge >

Hayabusa's target marker released!
This is a photo of the target marker released by Hayabusa toward the "Muses Sea" site sampling target on Itokawa on November 10, 2005. Credit: ISAS / JAXA

Visit our Hayabusa news archives for information on the current status of the mission.

[sam_paine]

You have the choice to ride a Japanese-designed rocket, or a Chinese designed rocket. Which one do you git on? Ha!

And the Chinese are going to take over the world?

[NormsRevenge]

ping

[dagnabbit]

Cool mission. Good to see Japan doing this sort of thing.

[silverleaf]

All Itokawa base are belong to them.

[PoorMuttly]

This is how Godzilla will get here.

You'll see.

[RightWhale]

I own a Toyota, made in Japan. If the Japanese wish to join in the exploration and development of space to a greater extent, they sure have the expertise.

[sam_paine]

Certainly the Japanese have a better handle on quality than the Chinese. What interests me, is that the Japanese culturally are more amenable to the concept of engineering (the application of scientific principles to real world problems) than the Chinese, or even to Koreans, imho.

The Japanese and the Chinese both seem to have a "sae face" mentality, but the Chinese that I have worked with have a tendency to address a problem with a purely political solution (such as ignoring it) whereas the Japanese will do extra work in the background to figure out the problem, and then try to fit a political solution around the engineering solution that best solves the problem.

BTW, there's "automotive quality," "marine quality," and then "aerospace quality."

Take connectors as an example. Relatively compared to aerospace requirements, Lexus electrical connectors etc are essentially the same quality as Yugo connectors. The Lexus connectors may survive 300,000 miles vs. the 30,000 miles of the Yugo....but the operating environment of aerospace conditions would destruct both of them in milliseconds. Using basic engineering principles from the ground up in aerospace applications is a good thing. Using automotive experience in aerospace could get people killed.

[sam_paine]

"sae face" ="save face" .... not Society of Automotive Engineers Face! Them is ugly!

[TomasUSMC]

What results did we get with our blast-an-asteriod mission?

[Godzilla]

This is how Godzilla will get here. You'll see.

Say what!

[NormsRevenge]

Haven't seen anything reported. We proved we can hit a target in outer space tho, at least. ;-)

[RightWhale]

I have worked with Japanese engineers and scientists. The automotive environment is harsh, no question. The space environment is a whole order of harshness beyond that. But, the Japanese engineers and scientists are top notch. If anybody can do space, the Japanese can. I have worked with Chinese engineers and scientists also, and there is something different, hard to say what: natural 'feel' for the work, something like that.

[PoorMuttly]

Told ya.

[COBOL2Java]

Artist's rendering (but you knew that, didn't you?)...

[snowsislander]

It looks like the schedule is for Hayabusa to drop the Minerva mini-probe tomorrow.