Posted on 11/23/2005 7:26:09 AM PST by Excuse_My_Bellicosity
TOKYO (AP) -- Japan's space agency said Wednesday its spacecraft had successfully touched down on an asteroid 180 million miles from Earth despite an earlier announcement that it had failed.
On Sunday, JAXA officials had said the Hayabusa probe, on a mission to land on the asteroid named Itokawa, collect material, then bring it back to Earth, failed to touch down after maneuvering within yards of the surface.
However, the agency said Wednesday that data confirmed that Hayabusa had landed on the surface Sunday for a half-hour, although it failed to collect material.
JAXA officials had said earlier that Hayabusa dropped a small object as a touchdown target from 130 feet above the asteroid and then descended to 56 feet from the surface, at which point ground control lost contact with the probe for about three hours.
But after analyzing data, the agency said the probe landed on the asteroid within about 99 feet of the initial landing target.
The agency officials were still analyzing the data and will decide by Thursday whether to conduct a second landing attempt Friday, according to Seiji Koyama, a spokesman for the space agency.
The mission has been troubled by a series of glitches.
A landing rehearsal earlier this month was aborted when the probe had trouble finding a site, and a small robotic lander that deployed from the probe was lost. Hayabusa also suffered a problem with one of its three gyroscopes, but it has since been repaired.
Hayabusa was launched in May 2003 and has until early December before it must leave orbit and begin its long journey home. It is expected to return to Earth and land in the Australian Outback in June 2007.
The asteroid is named after Hideo Itokawa, the father of rocket science in Japan, and is orbiting the sun between Earth and Mars. It is 2,300 feet long and 1,000 feet wide.
Examining asteroid samples is expected to help unlock secrets of how celestial bodies were formed because their surfaces are believed to have remained relatively unchanged over the eons, unlike those of larger bodies such the planets or moons, JAXA said.
A NASA probe collected data for two weeks from the Manhattan-sized asteroid Eros in 2001, but did not return with samples.
Maybe they bought the 'Express On-site Service' extended maintenance contract.
I always like the way the Chinese call their spacecraft "Divine Shinzou IV", or "Holy Imperious Quang III", or some such. They're always so grandiose. Besides, they have no space program, they just buy Russian premade ships and such. I could buy a russian ship and put my grandma in it. Big whoop.
i doubt it :-) the cost of mining and returning said minerals to earth would be counter productive and cost more than the minerals are worth here on Earth
That's obviously true, but based on previous threads people have this vast emotional attachment to the idea that mining asteroids will be economically viable.
i doubt it :-) the cost of mining and returning said minerals to earth would be counter productive and cost more than the minerals are worth here on Earth
That could completely change if/when a Space Elevator becomes a reality.
I agree the only reason that mining an asteroid would make logical sense, is if someone found a element on one that does not exist on our periodic table or planet.
not sure that helps either as a space elevator concept is useful for cheap and fast transport from earth to near orbit? there are no asteroids in this locality
If you mine asteroids and use the minerals in space instead of returning them to earth - e.g. to build other spaceships or solar panels or whatnot - then that would come closer to economic viability. We are talking about Von Neumann style automation here.
How about strapping a rocket on an asteroid and pushing it into low earth orbit?
Hmm still not convinced, where would you use the minerals? colonizing planets? The moon? Isn't the Earth still better and closer placed to provide this resource both economically and physically (180 million miles to said asteroid and field) than a remote asteroid. I can understand mining on the moon if you intend to colonize it or Mars the same. Why would journeying millions of miles to an asteroid field be logical in your example?
Hmm still not convinced, where would you use the minerals? colonising planets? The moon? Isn't the Earth still better and closer placed to provide this resource both economicaly and physically (180 million miles to said asteroid and field) than a remote asteroid. I can understand mining on the moon if you intend to colonize it or Mars the same. Why would journying millions of miles to an asteroid field be logical in your example?
What source of propulsion and fuel would you use? the fuel resource for such a task would be enormous
I looked up "Hayabusa" thinking that was the word for the do-rag that kamikaze pilots wore. Guess I was wrong, but I did find a picture of one of them taxiing out in a KI-43 Hayabusa fighter. Any translators here?
If the space elevator concept stopped at near orbit that would be true. It doesn't. In fact, a near orbit elevator would not even be viable as the counterweight needs to be in geosynchronous orbit just to stay in place. This means payloads can be lifted not only into orbit but set on escape trajectories. This would drop the cost/lb for an extraterrestrial launch from about $10,000/lb to less than $100/lb - making an elevator launch about 1% the cost of a rocket launch. And this figure would actually become smaller per pound as the size of the payload increased - completely opposite of rocket launches.
Once in GSO, the only propellant needed (which can be cheaply lifted as well, removing the limitations on quantity) would be for pushing the payload in the right direction and fine tuning guidance systems.
The return trip of the mined materials would benefit as well. Once mined, a single push would propel the harvested materials into a trajectory that could be intercepted and shipped down the elevator bypassing the need for expensive reentry vessels.
The same difference between 99 cents and 1 dollar? Why say something is $5.99 as opposed to $6.00? That always irked me.
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