Posted on 12/07/2005 10:28:47 AM PST by blam
Asteroid sampling mission probably failed
16:01 07 December 2005
NewScientist.com news service
Maggie McKee and AFP
The Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa is likely to have failed in its landmark mission to collect the first-ever samples from an asteroid, mission officials said on Wednesday. It also faces trouble returning to Earth.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) had earlier said the Hayabusa probe "most probably" succeeded in gathering material from the Itokawa asteroid, 290 million kilometres from Earth, on 26 November. The spacecraft was thought to have landed on the space rock for just one second, firing two metal pellets to throw up material for collection in a cone-shaped horn.
"But now we found that the possibility is very high that a metal bullet to collect samples was not actually fired," a JAXA official said. "And therefore the possibility is also very high that Hayabusa has failed to collect samples". The official added that the agency still had a "slim" hope that the probe may have caught some dust.
The reason for the confusion appears to stem from the fact that just after the landing, the spacecraft put itself into "safe" mode - where all unnecessary systems were shut down. This occurred after it suffered a fuel thruster leak that caused it to move unexpectedly.
So ground controllers had to work for several days to recover control of the spacecraft before they could download data from the touchdown. That data now suggests the pellets were not fired.
Flat battery fear
Even if some dust managed to slip into the collection horn during the touchdown on 26 November - or during an earlier, problem-plagued landing on 20 November - the spacecraft's thruster problem means it may not be able to leave the asteroid by mid-December.
If it misses that window, it must wait another three years before the distance between Earth and the asteroid is ideal for the return trip. But the spacecraft's battery may not last that long.
Nonetheless, mission officials remain hopeful of salvaging the mission. "Hayabusa is now temporarily maintaining its proper position with an emergency booster," the JAXA official said. "We won't give up our hope as long as there is a possibility."
Hayabusa suffered a number of other problems, including the breakdown of reaction wheels that controlled its stability and the loss of a robot that was due to explore the asteroid.
It was launched in May 2003 with a budget of 12.7 billion yen ($100 million dollars) and was scheduled to return to Earth in June 2007. Once near Earth, the capsule containing the asteroid samples was set to detach from the probe and land in the Australian desert.
The asteroid was formed 4.6 billion years ago at the same time as the solar system and represents a geological “fossil” from that time. Any samples would also provide information about the composition and structure of asteroids, which would be vital for any future plan to deflect a celestial object on a collision course with Earth.
This will teach them to veer from their proven kamikaze technology.
They can just take one of our ingenious ideas and build on it per usual.
Mothra?
I was leaning toward Gamera!
If they had they would have been given technology that not only would have allowed the asteroid mission to be a success, but it also would have allowed them to develop multiple nuclear warhead reentry systems.
What a blunder on their part!
You seriously misunderestimate them
They landed on a moving targeta serious accomplishment. They communicated with their craft after the landing. To denigrate the feat is to misunderstand the magnitude of the effort.
I have an Acura..... It is not a build on an ingenious idea. It is a superior idea that won't be duplicated because Detroit lacks the will.
I seriously "misunderestimate" your sense of humor... but ok.
Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs) are space rocks larger than approximately 100m that can come closer to Earth than 0.05 AU. None of the known PHAs is on a collision course with our planet, although astronomers are finding new ones all the time.
On 11 Dec 2005 there were 748 known Potentially
Hazardous Asteroids
December 2005 Earth-asteroid encounters
ASTEROID
DATE (UT) MISS DISTANCE MAG. SIZE
2005 XA8 Dec. 5 0.6 LD 15 ~35 m
2005 XX Dec. 9 2.2 LD 18 ~20 m
2005 WC1 Dec. 14 7.9 LD 15 ~370 m
Notes: LD is a "Lunar Distance." 1 LD = 384,401 km, the distance between Earth and the Moon. 1 LD also equals 0.00256 AU. MAG is the visual magnitude of the asteroid on the date of closest approach.
When the sun sets on Sunday, Dec. 11th, you've got to go outside and look. In the south, Venus is shining at its maximum brightness for all of 2005.
From http://www.spaceweather.com/
For the last 2 weeks on Fri nights as I drove home, I saw an unusually bright star in the south horizon. I didn't know if it was a planet, a satellite or what, but it must be Venus.
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