...starting a new thread for Hayabusa's sampling feedback and the return voyage.
After its nail-biting success in November, will there be enough fuel for the Falcon to make it home?
Recent News from http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fsmatsu.air-nifty.com%2Flbyd%2F2005%2F11&langpair=ja%7Cen&hl=es&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&prev=%2Flanguage_tools
2005.11.28
" It is quick the ぶ, link ": Finishing the landing mission,
According to the communication from JAXA public information, the pattern which also use of 28 days spends to the return from safe mode. Establishing three axial control, using the high gain antenna, when landing those where it downloads the data which you acquire are after the tomorrow 29 day. The data being analyzed, to reach to publication, furthermore several days will be needed.
It is quick, the ぶ, the predecessor unexplored mission which is called landing and soil sample collection to the asteroid was completed. The last distance which from now on is directed to the earth starts, but the reaction wheel 3 middle 2 bases are broken, the thrusters which become substitution the propellant remaining amount are few. Probably become also road and with difficult ones. It is something which prays the collection success of of safety of road and the reentry capsule which rounds off the mission.
This article is still unclear to me. It seems like that Falcon will be acquainted within 28 days from Safe mode to active mode before returning home...That means that Falcon will start pack its bag to return home by December 24.
Rodolfo
According to the article of the space.com. By December 10, JAXA team will decide one of two possibles ways to return home: By accompanying the Asteroide Itokawa for 2 years until it crosses close to Earth's orbit before leaving Itokawa.
We will meet that deadline, whatever happens,'' Matogawa said. Otherwise, it would be two more years before the probe _ orbiting the sun between Earth and Mars together with the asteroid _ would be in the right position to return, he said.
or by traveling alone back home for one year and half or later in a route clock's wise to Earth orbit before arriving at Australia.
Rodolfo
It would certainly be interesting if Hayabusa followed Itokawa for all that time.. In all likelihood Itokawa doesn't do much of anything as it tumbles around, but who knows, eh? If nothing else I'm sure they would obtain more detailed imagery. They could manuever Hayabusa such that Itokawa was between it and the Sun most of the journey, which would have to provide substantial protection from solar radiation, the most likely hazard when spending time near the Sun (gotta be, right?). Then again, another six months, and if Hayabusa is disabled, that's it, and how interesting is Itokawa, really?
Perhaps they will flip a coin..
I'm not sure that sitting in Itokawa's shadown would be a great idea for keeping the batteries charged...
It's pretty remarkable how little difference it makes in time though, between powering home and just drifting along with Itokawa.
Yeah, I remembered the solar panels need some solar radiation after I posted that.. Half-in-shadow, half-out-of-shadow, then!
I would tell you some bad news…
JAXA says Hayabusa has troubled with both of main/backup thrusters.
Main thruster system could turn to ice, the other one have leaked.
Now they are holding press conference now.
According to Matsuura's Blog.
http://smatsu.air-nifty.com/lbyd/2005/11/3_dc16.html
Now we can read translations. Thank you a lot, nao.
Good translation! Worrying news, though. The main thruster system is obstructed, the backup system leaks, and they don't have attitude control. Which prevents them from using Hayabusa's HGA, and communications with the other antennae have been spotty.
Here are some snippets:
Sorry for multi-posting.
If your friends are working in NASA/JPL, please show them this message:
"Hayabusa needs help"
http://5thstar.air-nifty.com/blog/2005/11/hayabusa_needs_.html
We need to make use of NASA 70m parabola for recovery of Hayabusa.
Though we understand this is a selfish request, we can't help asking for your support.
Anyway,
Probably not good things
There are two press releases for Nov29 at the Jaxa site (in japanese only, so far) with several images and graphs:
http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2005/11/20051129_hayabusa_td2_j.html http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/trurl_pagecontent?lp=ja_en&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jaxa.jp%2Fpress%2F2005%2F11%2F20051129_hayabusa_td2_j.html
http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2005/11/20051129_hayabusa_j.html http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/trurl_pagecontent?lp=ja_en&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jaxa.jp%2Fpress%2F2005%2F11%2F20051129_hayabusa_j.html
Edit : A small piece of the 2nd document appeared in english :
http://www.hayabusa.isas.jaxa.jp/e/index.html
Dear 5thstar (if you read this forum), ljk4-1, odave and other guys,
Very sorry for my misleading post. I posted it just as a fan feeling a sympathy for 5thstar's message and I also believe that Prof. Kawaguchi is already doing what to do.
Anyway, sorry if you felt unpleasant, and thank you for your kind replies.
Grist for the Moomaw mill ...
This from the Nature online news article...
"The mission is renewing Japan's confidence in space activities. JAXA has recently tried a string of high-risk missions, but has seen many failures over the past few years. "Hayabusa's success has become a tailwind for Japan's space development," Hajime Inoue, JAXA's executive director, said at a press conference. "It proves that the way we have been doing things wasn't wrong."
I hope that is a translation gaffe and they really don't think that everything is a-ok with thier whole program because of a recent streak of (much needed) luck!
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Pride goeth before a leak.
Nice detailed update from Emily over at http://www.planetary.org/news/2005/1130_Hayabusa_Team_ReEstablishes_Command.html
Dramatic news extracted from Planetary.org:
At this point, Hayabusa's exact location is unknown, although Kawaguchi said that it is "still within several kilometers from Itokawa." Moreover, he added, "there is little chance" they will lose touch with Hayabusa again, at least in terms of where it is now.
Not yet know where Hayabusa is located, perhaps it might fall on Itokawa due to the gravity tug and/or by the Sun wind pressure which is pushing it toward to Itokawa if it is located on the south of Itokawa (the South Polar of Itokawa faces to Sun and Earth).
Rodolfo
If Hayabusa's thrusters persist in being only half-useful, traveling with the asteroid until it gets closer to Earth may be the only choice - unless of course they won't be able to generate enough thrust before Earth flies away regardless.. Yet another cliffhanger.
Would it be possible to send out a probe to snag Hayabusa and bring it back to Earth with its surface samples? Or maybe remove just the samples and bring them back?
I think either scenario would be easier than trying a landing again on the planetoid at this point.
There many options. Wait for a while until before than December 10, next saturday to know what will be the final decision for the home return.
1) Travel along with Itokawa and then direct toward to Earth alone (more than 3 years). Their risks are on the power supply or batteries when it approaches to Mars' orbit where there are less sun radiation.
2) Travel alone back home (1 1/2 year). It depends upon to the health of thrusters.
3) Travel along with Itokawa and then wait for a rendezvous probe which will tug it until dropping to Earth.
4) Land on Itokawa and stay dormant upon the future visit.
5) Abandon it to his fate by wandering on the space.
Rodolfo
http://5thstar.air-nifty.com/blog/ has a few new Hayabusa updates.
Are they actually saying that they themselves accidentally programmed the craft with a command NOT to fire the bullet, or just that the spacecraft set itself back to a safe mode that kept it from doing so?
At any rate, it looks more and more as though Hayabusa is going to confirm all my dark warnings about the unwisdom of trying to do too complex a space mission with much too little money. (There is, by the way, a lengthy article in this week's Aviation Week suggesting that JAXA has very belatedly caught onto this fact.)
December 7, 2005 05:42 PM
According to the L/D of the Matsuura Shin 也...
Bulletin
* The possibility the bullet not being discharged is high
* It has not recovered the thruster
* Ion using the engine, attitude control (Correction: Speaking accurately, applying the function of the ion engine system, attitude control)
* I To matte (Itokawa) as for starting even with most speed after 14 days
* Concerning return undecided
From blog: Paku http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fpaku.txt-nifty.com%2F&langpair=ja%7Cen&hl=es&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&prev=%2Flanguage_tools
Brief summary from the blog: http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fpaku.txt-nifty.com%2F&langpair=ja%7Cen&hl=es&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&prev=%2Flanguage_tools
December 2nd. The chemical engine (the thruster) restart was tried, but small thrust is verified in earnest not to start.
December 3rd, it was verified that the high gain antenna axis of the probe and the angle which the sun and the earth form have expanded to 20 or 30 degrees. As the attitude control method of emergency, the xenon gas for ion engine driving it starts the compilation of the operational software to the thing which does the attitude control with the injection.
December 4th, it executes the attitude modification with the xenon gas injection.
December 5th, the sun, the earth and the high gain antenna axis recover to 10 degree - 20 degrees, presently by way of the medium gain antenna communication does at speed of 256 bit /s. However, because the probe slowly is turning, as for the communication by the medium gain antenna intermittence ones such as 1 minute in 6 minutes.
As of December 6th, it is (Hayabusa) quick the (Itokawa) ぶ, from the I To matte in gaze direction it is in the place of the 550km. As for distance from earth 2 hundred million 9000 ten thousand km. Presently just 1 basis the reaction wheel which remains verifies the recovery moving and the revolution with the 1000rpm.
In the other word, now Hayabusa is around 550 km distance from Itokawa and is 290,010,000 kilometers from Earth. (almost just in the opposite side) The RCS z-axis still works at 1,000 rpm.
Rodolfo
More translations have been added on the comment area of Matsuura's blog.
The Dec 8 update of the Y.M. Column is now online. The main issues with Hayabusa are already known, but this is a Must Read, if only for the intense atmosphere described in it. I wish them success!
http://www.planetary.or.jp/en/column/index.html
From the above:
Lots of good info in those http://smatsu.air-nifty.com/lbyd/ - the volunteer work is much appreciated! For those who haven't read it yet, there is some hope for getting some kind of sample back:
Status of the Hayabusa
December 7, 2005
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
As has been reported, it is estimated that part of a series of
attitude and orbit control commands to restore the Hayabusa from its
safe-hold mode have not gone well, and the functions of its major
systems, including its attitude and communication network, have
significantly deteriorated. However, on Nov. 29, a beacon line through
a low gain antenna was restored.
On Nov. 30, we started a restoration operation by turning on and off
the radio frequency modulation through the autonomous diagnostic
function. Subsequently, on Dec. 1, telemetry data were acquired at 8
bits per second through the low gain antenna, although the line was
weak and often disconnected. According to the data transmitted so far,
the attitude and orbit control commands sent on Nov. 27 did not work
well due to an unknown reason, and either major attitude control
trouble or a large electric power loss seems to have occurred. It is
estimated that the overall power switching systems for many pieces of
onboard equipment were reset as their temperature dropped
substantially due to the evaporation of leaked propellant, and also
because of a serious discharge of electricity from the batteries of
many sets of onboard equipment and systems due to declining power
generation. Details are still under analysis.
On Dec. 2, we tried to restart the chemical engine, but, even though
a small thrust was confirmed, we were not able to restore full-scale
operations. Consequently, the cause of the anomaly on Nov 27 is still
under investigation, and we suspect that one of the causes could be
the malfunction of the chemical engine.
On Dec. 3, we found that the angles between the axis of the onboard
high gain antenna (+Z angle) and the Sun, and also that with the earth,
had increased to 20 to 30 degrees. As an emergency attitude control
method, we decided to adopt a method of jetting out xenon for the ion
engine operation. Accordingly, we immediately started to create the
necessary operation software. As we completed the software on Dec. 4,
we changed the spin speed by xenon jet, and its function was confirmed.
Without delay, we sent an attitude change command through this
function.
As a result, on Dec. 5, the angle between the +Z axis and the sun, and
the earth, recovered to 10 to 20 degrees, and the telemetry data
reception and acquisition speed was restored to the maximum 256 bits
per second through the mid gain antenna.
After that, we found that there was a high possibility that the
projectile (bullet) for sampling had not been discharged on Nov. 26,
as we finally acquired a record of the pyrotechnics control device
for projectile discharging from which we were not able to confirm
data showing a successful discharge. However, it may be because of the
impact of the system power reset; therefore, we are now analyzing the
details including the confirmation of the sequence before and after
the landing on Nov. 26.
As of Dec. 6, the distance between the Hayabusa and the Itokawa is
about 550 kilometers, and that from the earth is about 290 million
kilometers. The explorer is relatively moving from the Itokawa toward
the earth at about 5 kilometers per hour.
We are now engaging in turning on, testing, and verifying onboard
equipment of the Hayabusa one by one to start the ion engine. We
currently plan to shift the attitude control to one using the Z-axis
reaction wheel, and restart the ion engine. The restart is expected to
happen no earlier than the 14th. We are currently rescheduling the
plan for the return trip to earth. We need to study how to relax the
engine operation efficiency. We will do our utmost to solve the
problem with the attitude control (such as the restoration of the
chemical engine), then find a solution for the return trip.
Since Nov. 29, our reports have been limited due to difficulties in
confirming telemetry data. We apologize for any inconvenience.
We will inform you as soon as the ion engine is restarted.
This page URL:
http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2005/12/20051207_hayabusa_e.html
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Publisher : Public Affairs Department
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)
Marunouchi Kitaguchi Building,
1-6-5, Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100-8260
Japan
TEL:+81-3-6266-6400
JAXA WEB SITE :
http://www.jaxa.jp/index_e.html
Hope that Hayabusa has a match fire on their side for just in the case that the ion engine won't also be able to be ignited....
I am pessimist of a good trail of "mishapes".
Rodolfo
Since the xenon was not intended to be used as an attitude control gas, Are they using a venting valve to adjust the spin and attitude, or can they run zenon into the attitude control system?
In either case, the calculations are quite complex: They would have to maintain a slow rotation rate, and vent the gas at just the precise moment for the right percentage of the roll to adjust the tilt. It would take a very careful trial-and-error assessments to do this (the ultimate $170million dollar video game...and a lot of Lipovan
FATE OF JAPAN'S TROUBLED ASTEROID PROBE UNCERTAIN
-------------------------------------------------
Japanese officials are struggling to fix a horde of problems plaguing the
Hayabusa space mission in time to begin its journey back to Earth with or
without a package of specimens that were supposed to have been collected
from the surface of asteroid Itokawa late last month.
http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0512/11hayabusa/
Press Conference about Hayabusa present status, will held at 9:30 14rh Dec. JST.
S.MATSU intend to upload Japanese article at 11:00 or so here http://smatsu.air-nifty.com/lbyd/
Just added this to my http://planetary.org/blog/, I thought I'd add it here for all of your benefit too...We just received the following update from Tasuku Iyori of The Planetary Society of Japan regarding Hayabusa:
I very much doubt it will be around by then, and I'm afraid we will soon be able to add Hayabusa to Japan's almost unbroken modern record of space failures -- although at least it came a good deal closer to success than most of Japan's missions do. Space missions simply cannot be done on such low funding levels.
I shudder to report that -- according to the Nov. 28 Aviation Week -- JAXA has been taking its advice on how to reform its space program from Dan Goldin.
So - would another nation be willing and able to recover Hayabusa or at least any samples it may have, or even take over its mission?
If the probe is going to hang around Itokawa for almost another year, will it continue to study the planetoid?
Shin-ya Matsuura's transcript is up in Japanese. Here's the pretty terrible http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fsmatsu.air-nifty.com%2Flbyd%2F&langpair=ja%7Cen&hl=en&c2coff=1&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&prev=%2Flanguage_tools. Sounds like little in the way of good news --Emily
A cooperative translation project is taking place http://mole.den.hokudai.ac.jp/jspace/index.php?LbyD%2F20051214-2...keep refreshing the screen, they are working diligently on the translation.
--Emily
From http://mole.den.hokudai.ac.jp/jspace/index.php?LbyD%2F20051214-2
At first when I read the interview it seemed as if they thought they had a 60-70 percent chance of probe recovery - not it seems it just means the chance of getting it communicating!
*** JAXA MAIL SERVICE ***
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Status of the Hayabusa
December 14, 2005
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
Hayabusa spacecraft currently undergoes the recovery operation to
resume the communication with the ground stations. It was hit by an
abrupt disturbing torque owing to the fuel leak that occurred before,
and has been out of the ground contact since December 9th. The
project team has a good expect to have the spacecraft resume the
communication soon. However, the project is now not so sure to make
the spacecraft return to earth in June of 2007 and has decided to
lengthen the flight period for three years more to have it return to
the Earth in June of 2010.
On December 8th, Usuda station observed the sudden shifts of the
range-rate measurements at 4:13 UTC with the corresponding gradual
decrease of signal intensity AGC (Automated Gain Controller) read.
The measurement and the intensity change slowly and are currently
estimated due to the out-gassing effect that derived from the fuel
leak-out at the end of last month. The leak occurred on November 26th
and 27th. Since the beacon signal communication resumed on 29th, the
project has made an effort to exclude the vapor gas of the fuel from
the spacecraft. The project has by now identified the out-gassing has
successfully been performed, as its exponential acceleration decay
has shown so far.
On December 8th, the spacecraft was under the resume operation phase
for the chemical propulsion, and was given a slow spin whose period
is about six minutes. From the beginning of December, the project has
introduced the Xenon gas thruster control strategy for emergency,
replacing the chemical propulsion system. But the control capability
of it was not enough strong for the spacecraft to withstand the
disturbance on December 8th. Current estimation says the spacecraft
may be in a large coning motion and that is why the spacecraft has
not responded to the commands sent from the ground station.
The spacecraft has been out of communication since December 9th.
Analysis predicting the attitude property relating to both the Sun
and Earth shows that there will be high possibility counted on for
the resumption of the communication from the ground for several
months or more ahead. However, the spacecraft may have to undergo
another long term baking cycle before it starts the return cruise
operation using ion engines aboard. And it is concluded that the
commencement of the return cruise during December is found difficult.
The project has determined that the return cruise should start from
2007 so that the spacecraft can return to the Earth in June of 2010,
three years later than the original plan, as long as no immediate
resumption tales place very soon.
The spacecraft operation will shift from the normal mode to the
rescue mode for several months to one year long. Long term predict
indicates high probability of having the spacecraft communicated
with the ground station again, with the spacecraft captured well in
the beam width of the Usuda deep space antenna.
The spacecraft will take the advantage of Xenon gas attitude control
again after enough length of baking operation. The Xenon gas that
remains is adequate for the return cruise devised by the ion engines
carried by Hayabusa.
The Hayabusa web page will report anything updated, as soon as it
becomes available.
(Supplement) Hayabusa Rescue Operation
http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2005/12/20051214_hayabusa_e.html#sup
This page URL:
http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2005/12/20051214_hayabusa_e.html
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Publisher : Public Affairs Department
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)
Marunouchi Kitaguchi Building,
1-6-5, Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100-8260
Japan
TEL:+81-3-6266-6400
JAXA WEB SITE :
http://www.jaxa.jp/index_e.html
English version of JAXA press release:
http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2005/12/20051214_hayabusa_e.html
http://www.isas.jaxa.jp/e/snews/2005/1214.shtml
Translation of the press conference is now completed.
http://smatsu.air-nifty.com/lbyd/2005/12/20051214_18c7.html#c5380890
http://smatsu.air-nifty.com/lbyd/2005/12/1214_8042.html#c5385838
A follow-up article seems now being translated. Wait a moment.
It includes a nice episode about LIPOVITAN-D
Guys, wait with patience for the return in 2010 !
All sounds a little bit Nozomi-ish really I just hope they can keep the think held together for another 5 years
Doug
It'd be cheaper, and the results would be better to just bolt on instruments to another spacecraft rather than trying to rescue another one
Doug
Indeed yes, but we are still with diaper in space robotic technology. For Hayabusa, it would be much easier by releasing its outside canister but for Nozomi's case is not possible since it was not designed to release anything. I think so
Rodolfo
Science/Astronomy:
* Asteroid Probe Yields Insight For Planetary Defense
http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/051214_after_hayabusa.html
Following roughly two months of notable operations at asteroid Itokawa, Japan's
Hayabusa probe is damaged goods. Hindered by thruster and gyroscope breakdowns,
the spacecraft is under makeshift attitude control with engineers hoping to
finesse the craft onto a homeward-bound trajectory back to Earth.
* Black Hole Swallows Neutron Star, Observations Suggest
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/051214_star_collision.html
A distant eruption of high-energy gamma rays is evidence for a black hole
swallowing another dense object called a neutron star, astronomers announced
today.
Example for Hayabusa return starting in June 2007
Hayabusa leaving 2007 to Earth 2010
New trajectory (red line) leaving Itokawa vicinity in spring of 2007, returning to Earth
in June of 2010 is shown here. The Xenon gas consumption meets the current
amount that remains. There will be some strategy needed and left for the operational discussion on how the attitude is protected against unexpected disturbance.
Interpreting the above picture, in the year 2007, Hayabusa will leave Itokawa by orbiting around to Itokawa before taking the orbit around the Sun in the clockwise. The Earth will orbit in counter-clockwise around the Sun. See the red line which is the proyected return home in 2007. The blue line is the proposed route to home in this year.
The question is why Hayabusa will make a small loop in the half way of orbit? (see on the left side)
Rodolfo
ljk4-1 :
"QUOTE(djellison @ Dec 14 2005, 03:30 PM)
Some day being Apollo 12
Doug
Nah, that was a fluke. "
No - Apollo 12 collecting bits of Surveyor 3, not the return of its SIVB, which must be what you are thinking of...
Phil
The Hayabusa orbits plot is in sun-earth-fixed ROTATING coordinates. The loops are where the spacecraft, I think at perehilion, is travelling faster than Earth, while the rest of the orbit it's travelling slower.
Heathens! How dare you try to explain away Hayabusa's divine epicycles as a mere illusion of refrence point!!
"Except for the return element, Hayabusa has been a stunning success, and I hope we don't see the mission downplayed a la Nozomi. "
I disagree, so far its robot missed the asteroid, they did not know it had touched down, they don't know if they have any samples, and its out of control and pretty much disabled, it will be a miricle if it ever makes it back to earth, which I doubt, it'll proberbly die in the cold of space.
Thats IMHO.
Well, it did everything NEAR did on only about 2/3 of the money, which is not to be sneezed at -- especially since it gave us nice comparative data on another asteroid. Unfortunately, it now looks as though everything it tried to do BEYOND what NEAR did will be a washout.
Let me amend: ALMOST everything. (Its best photos of Itokawa's surface were as high-resolution as NEAR's best photos of Eros' surface -- and its maneuvers around the asteroid were at least as intricate as NEAR's.)
And also remember that this is primarily an engineering mission, and as such even the failures are valuable. I'm sure JAXA/ISAS is keeping a list of what went right and wrong. Hopefully backup reaction wheels are near the top under "what to do better next time"
Hayabusa returned a huge amount of infrared spectrometer data. The NEAR instrument failed early in the mission, and the high-orbit data (as I recall) didn't tell much about surface composition variation, as it was mostly unresolved. The X-Ray composition data may be significantly better than NEAR's, but published data in science result papers will tell.
Does anyone have any insight into why reaction wheels have been such a bug-a-boo? I know, from my own work with inductive circuits in a vacuum, there are always serious overheating issues when radiation is the only way to disappate heat energy. Are the reaction wheels being driven to greater loads than expected?
Even if Hayabusa only returned a quarter of NEAR's data volume (and I'm not suggesting I know what the fraction would be) - it's still important because it's a different world. We now have a very nice new data set for Itokawa which we didn't have before, so that's good. I absolutely agree JAXA's efforts are underfunded, but that's a political issue for Japan to resolve itself.
Actually, I think JAXA hurt itself a bit in its list of mission objectives. They assigned points to each mission phase, but they were too much weighted towards the final stages. I would have weighted them more heavily for the work done up to now, so that a more substantial degree of success would be shown today. The remote sensing was very valuable. Then the sample return would be 'icing on the cake' if it could be pulled off.
Ahh... I can almost hear the sound of the milk of human kindness sloshing around in me today. 'tis the season... I guess.
Phil
Holder of the Two Leashes:
"The reason it didn't show much surface variation is because, as this instrument discovered, there was no significate variation to report. "
I remain unconvinced of that. The areas of greatest color and albedo variation, or features where composition variations might be expected, were generally well below 1/2 km in size. I'm specifically referring to the high albedo steep slopes inside the freshest craters and the small, slightly darker than general regolith smooth "ponds" in crater bottoms.
I note that the camera, which had a TINY CCD detector with non-square pixels and high noise levels (obvious in low-contrast stretched images of a high contrast target) had real trouble seeing color variations, but they were there once enough pixels on a target were averaged.
Global color variations are near zero, but weak local ones, mostly on 100 or 50 meter scales and smaller are present. I expect/suspect similar ones were present in infrared wavelengths but were undetected due to resolution and possible signal/noise factors.
Would it have been easier to have Hayabusa touch down on several different places on Itokawa to take images and data, rather than have brought Minerva along to do that job?
Or even just one stationary lander to leave on the planetoid?
Minerva would do much better the job with imaging and temperature than Hayabusa but due to a bad luck it has gone away forewer. Hayabusa ANC wide camera is not designed to take close pictures but unless up to 50 meters from Itokawa.
Hence, Hayabusa has no legs to sit on Hayabusa.
The initial mission, JAXA took this as an engineering mission with much greater points (see the Lyford's previous comments) than the scientific mission.
Rodolfo
And NEAR never found a http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.isas.jaxa.jp%2Fj%2Fsnews%2F2005%2F1110_hayabusa.shtml&langpair=ja%7Cen&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&prev=%2Flanguage_tools, either.
I, too, hope to be wrong, but I don't hold much hope for our little friend. Let us hope that the engineering lessons JAXA has learned include what to do and what NOT to do in the future.
Holder of the Two Leashes:
"...One other thing I don't understand, though, is what your whole point is. ..."
I guess my points is that NEAR was the first of the Smaller, Cheaper, Faster, Better missions, but there is an ongoing debate on whether it was even good enough to accomplish what I thought was it's primary mission objective: determining whether S-type asteroids are or are not the parent bodies of ordinary chondrite meteorites. While the indications of a space-weathering modified surface were at least somewhat expected to cause potential problems in linking the two, the mission that was flown carried instruments that simply did not have the signal-to-noise ratio AND the resolution to clearly sort out what appear to be end-members of the weathering sequence. It was good, but like Boris, it wasn't good-enough.
Where NEAR really shined is in photo-geology, where it mostly made up for it's dinky camera with scads and scads of images that can be mosaiced into global coverage, and revolutionized our understanding of geologic processes on asteroids.
Both missions were successful. Note that they were quite different operationally in that NEAR orbited Eros, while Hayabusa more or less "escorted" Itokawa, and so far as I have seen, ended up with mainly high phase angle images. Of course, this was part of the mission design.
I would think that in retrospect, one might try to emulate NEAR again staying rather close to the mission's goals/money ratio, whereas Hayabusa was a bit too far over the edge for a novel spacecraft... perhaps with legacy components a future mission could be as ambitious and as cheap, but clearly the mission had more than one failure to execute -- the blessing is that it suceeded in every way needed to produce good science. Was it by design or luck that the "optional" portions of the mission were the ones to fail? Contrast Nozomi, which had lots of systems operational, but the one that failed to execute meant no Mars encounter at all.
NEAR had the advantage of treating Eros like it was a planet, but alternately easier (since light thrusters could perform the manuevers) and harder (strange gravity field made it). Hayabusa had a different challenge, and one felt as though it was awkwardly dancing with the asteroid. We can divide future asteroid missions between those that can orbit their worlds and those that must undertake many, frequent propulsive manuevers to execute. Given speed-of-light time, an autonomous system that was foolproof in gracefully dancing with its target would be a tremendous accomplishment.
One accomplishment of Hayabusa was in showing us an entirely new kind of world, at the smallest-yet end of the spectrum, whereas Eros looks on the whole like Gaspra, and is not too different from Phobos, the first "small" world seen by spacecraft. In a sense, Hayabusa "finished" the size spectrum, because yet smaller "worlds" are likely to be boulder heaps like Hayabusa in every way but the reading on the tape measure -- Hayabusa is clearly at the point where gravity ceases to rework the "world" in any way except to hold it together and pool its dust.
Hawaii's Jeffrey Bell has been telling me for years that remote sensing -- even with high-quality instruments -- simply isn't adequate to answer the "ordinary chondrite" question, and that a sample return will be necessary. The evidence seems to be growing that he's right -- simple element measurements and near-IR spectra don't seem to be adequate to nail it -- and this is one reason why I regard "Hera" as one of the more likely candidates for selection in the next Discovery AO.
I just noticed this, though it may not be brand new. I don't think I had seen the false-color view at the bottom of the first page before this.
Phil
http://www.jaxa.jp/news_topics/column/special-4/index_e.html
Maybe if we wait a few million years, we'll get all the samples of Itokawa we will ever need - or want:
Smooth Sections on Asteroid Itokawa
Credit & Copyright: ISAS, JAXA
Explanation: Why are parts of this asteroid's surface so smooth? No one is yet sure, but it may have to do with the dynamics of an asteroid that is a loose pile of rubble rather than a solid rock. The unusual asteroid is currently being visited by the Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa that is documenting its unusual structure and mysterious lack of craters. Last month, Hayabusa actually touched down on one of the smooth patches, dubbed the MUSES Sea, and collected soil samples that will eventually be returned to Earth for analysis. Unfortunately, the robot Hayabusa craft has been experiencing communications problems and so its departure for Earth has been delayed until 2007.
Computer simulations show that 500-meter asteroid Itokawa may impact the Earth within the next few million years.
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap051228.html
From the January 12, 2006, issue of Nature: "http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v439/n7073/edsumm/e060112-05.html."
Coming back here after a hiatus... since Volcanopele pointed out in another thread that there are good abstracts on Hayabusa results at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference:
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2006/pdf/program.pdf
(near the bottom- check both the Hayabusa session and the posters)
Yes, there are, and they illustrate how successful JAXA has been in the remote sensing side of the mission. Some papers should appear in Science soon.
I went through all the abstracts and compiled a list of all the publicly announced feature names. None are official yet. Here they are shown over a montage of images which were released earlier, courtesy JAXA/ISAS. I look forward to seeing the first map of Itokawa.
Phil
Oh, yes. Two particularly striking photos that I've never seen before:
(1) http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2006/pdf/2463.pdf (Fig. 3): The closest photo taken yet of an asteroid's surface -- with a resolution of only 6 mm/pixel -- showing the surface of the "Muses Sea" where Hayabusa landed for its sampling runs, and revealing that the "pond" is filled not with fine dust but with coarse gravel. (The abstract reveals that the gravel gets gradually and progressively smaller as one moves toward the center of the pond. Definitely size-sorting by seismic shaking.)
(2) http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2006/pdf/1022.pdf (Fig. 1), making dramatically clear just how incredibly small Itokawa is compared with Eros. The similarity of their surface processes is thus even more striking.
The article remarks (though with what evidence I don't know; it's a reference to some upcoming reports on Hayabusa's findings in "Science") that the regolith on Eros' surface is finer than that on Itokawa -- and in fact a comparison of those two photos suggests just that. Is it possible that this is because Itokawa's still lower gravity means that meteoroid impacts kick the smallest particles completely off that asteroid's surface, whereas most of them tend to fall back onto Eros?
I think it likely that the bullet -- if it DID fire -- probably did kick at least a few small bits of rock into the sample container; the Japanese had the foresight to lab-test it on mostly-rock surfaces as well as loose ones. And of course Earth labs can now do stupendous things with very tiny samples, as Stardust will shortly prove again. But this does indicate the superiority of the alternate sampling system proposed for the "Hera" near-Earth asteroid Discovery proposal. Namely, a bunch of pads, each one pressed into the surface and coated with a 1-cm thick layer of squishy silicone grease -- which in lab tests very nicely picks up 0.1 kg of debris up to the size of small pebbles, without contaminating it for the purposes of laboratory study.
From the LPSC papers - a stereo pair that I've anaglyphed, simulated from LIDAR I believe..
Very nice, Doug.
I was talking to Gaskell about this - they have lots of small maps but they are not sure how to combine them into a global map. The problem (illustrated nicely in some of the abstracts) is that one area (Shirikami) is such a steep slope that a radius from the centre of mass passes out of the surface below Shirikami, then hits the surface again at the top of Shirikami. Normally, we associate one elevation value with each lat/long location. But here there are three separate points on the surface lying along one radius. This problem occurs to a minor extent on Eros, and might on Toutatis - and DOES on Kleopatra. The solution I have suggested is to use a non-radial lat/long system - maybe cylindrical, with a point being defined by its azimuth around the axis plus its position along the axis. The end of the cylinder need special attention, though. Another approach is to map the surface onto the convex hull of the shape, not its true shape, which removes the problem.
Phil
Thanks, nop, for pointing out the Shirakami problem. I will fix it and replace the image very soon.
Phil
Here is a corrected version of the Itokawa names image.
I'm grateful to nop for correcting me on this. There is a bit more to the story as well. Another person who saw the image queried the name I had spelled incorrectly, pointing out the humorous and/or unfortunate interpretation of it. So naturally, instead of checking with the LPSC abstracts, the sources for my names, I simply googled the name as I had originally spelled it. And wouldn't you know, there were lots of pages with the name spelled in that wrong way, referring to a mountain or mountain range in Japan. So I assumed the wrong spelling was in fact correct. Well, let that be a lesson to me never to rely only on Google, which is just as effective at finding mistakes as facts.
Anyway, I do hope we will soon see some official Japanese maps of this lovely little world.
Phil
Thank you for your quick revision, Phil.
I also tried googling "Shirikami". Most of the pages are intended to refer "Shirakami mountain" as one of UNESCO world heritage, but I found that there really exists a place named "Shirikami"! it was a new discovery to me
FYI, here are origins of the names (it's just my speculation and not the official announce of JAXA/ISAS):
Muses Sea: MUSES-C and greek goddess
Little Woomera: the place in Australia for capsule recovery
Uchinoura: Uchinoura Space Center. Hayabusa was launched from here
Sagamihara: the name of the city where ISAS is located
Yoshinodai: the name of the town where ISAS is located
Fuchinobe: the name of the nearest station to ISAS
Tsukuba: where the JAXA Space Center (old NASDA) is located
Usuda: JAXA Deep Space Center with 64m antenna
Yatsugatake: A mountain near Usuda
Shirakami: I'm not sure but it might be a mountain range near JAXA/ISAS Testing Center
Kamisunagawa: there was a facility for zero-gravity experiment (now there isn't)
Komaba: ISAS was here a decade ago
pencil boulder: the first Japanese rocket was called "pencil rocket", created by Dr. Hideo Itokawa
The Hayabusa mission and its planetoid target are the cover
subjects of the latest The Planetary Society The Planetary Report:
Hayabusa: A Daring Sample Return Mission
Japan's ambitious mission to land on an asteroid, collect samples, and return them to Earth has had its ups and downs. The tiny but robust spacecraft, with its determined ground crew, worked through problem after problem on its way to sample asteroid Itokawa. In the end, the "little spacecraft that could" revealed for the first time the rocky surface of Itokawa, dropped a memento from Earth onto its surface, and may have collected a sample of surface dust to return to Earth. Although we don't yet know if engineers will be able to guide the spacecraft back to Earth for the sample return, the Hayabusa mission team has much to be proud of. Journalist A.J.S. Rayl has been reporting on the spacecraft since before its launch in 2003. Here, she tells the story of Hayabusa's harrowing adventure.
http://www.planetary.org/programs/planetary_report.html
JAXA has been in touch with Hayabusa, but the situation is far from resolved.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11713182/
(sigh)
Bob Shaw
ISAS
http://www.isas.jaxa.jp/e/snews/2006/0308.shtml
LbyD,Matsuura's blog (Translation ver.)
http://jspace.misshie.jp/index.php?LbyD%2F20060307-1
http://jspace.misshie.jp/index.php?LbyD%2F20060307-2
Interesting article at http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=1107 - see also NASAWatch for a great comparison between Itokawa and the ISS!
Bob Shaw
It turns out that one of the new LPSC abstracts (#1575) by the Hayabusa team confirms that they think the lack of fine soil particles on Itokawa (as compared to Eros) is simply because of the asteroid's extremely low gravity: "Due to the low escape velocity of Itokawa (i.e., 10-20 cm/s), most of the fine ejecta in cratering having higher velocities
would have easily escaped from the surface. Only larger fragments with lower velocities than this escape velocity could have remained on the surface. This may explain why Itokawa’s surface has relatively small areas covered with regolith but is dominated by numerous exposed boulders."
This would presumably apply not only to ejecta directly kicked off by the surface by impacts, but to seismic shaking produced all over the asteroid by a large impact on it.
There is currently some belief that Itokawa's peculiar shape, which has been interpreted as being due to two rubble piles that collided with each other and stuck -- since any two such piles should have hit at such a high speed that they would have splattered and dispersed instead. Is it possible that Itokawa's shape -- a bifurcated lump, bent at the junction point -- is really just due to its being a single rubble pile that got a large impact on one side which splattered material away on that side and bent the entire pile?
Upcoming symposium on Hayabusa...
http://kumano.u-aizu.ac.jp/hayabusa_symp2006/
Phil
JAXA Succeeded in Hayabusa Probe's Ion Engine Ingnition Test
JAXA succeeded in ion engine ignition test of Hayabusa probe,
which tried rock sampling from asteroid Itokawa. The acceleration
was fine. JAXA will start ion engines in next January and aim to
return to the Earth in June, 2010.
JAXA tried the test using two of four ion engines. "Return flight
is possible if two ion engines work", Dr. Jun'ichiro Kawaguchi
of ISAS/JAXA said.
From Mainichi Shimbun Press (in Japanese) 5-31-2006 19:07 JST
http://www.mainichi-msn.co.jp/science/kagaku/news/20060601k0000m040040000c.html
Stay tuned tomorrow (June 1, 2006) for more Hayabusa science news
Great news! What a ride this must have been for the team, going from exhilaration to frustration to despair to guarded hopefulness. My hat is off to them for sticking with the mission in the face of severe adversity. Good luck in bringing the wounded Falcon home, guys
... and:
- http://www.newscientistspace.com/article/dn9257-rubbly-itokawa-revealed-as-impossible-asteroid.html
<< Nonetheless, Hayabusa's cameras reveal that some large boulders appear layered, "like you'd broken off a rock from the side of a river bed," he says. That suggests Itokawa's parent body was large enough to heat up at its centre and develop some internal structure, even if it wasn't large enough to melt. "There could have been hydrothermal processes conducting water around, similar to on Earth, where steam passes through rocks and alters their compositions," he told New Scientist. >>
Why we need to explore space directly.
A quote from the previously posted article:
What they found was completely unexpected. "Five years ago, we thought that we would see a big chunk of monolithic rock, that something so small doesn't have the ability to hold onto any pieces," says Erik Asphaug, a planetary scientist at the University of California in Santa Cruz, US, who is not involved with the mission. "Everything we suspected about it turned out to be wrong."
I played around with Hayabusa images last year, and made this map file. I didn't post it at the time, to let the mission scientists publish something first. I think it's OK now. And I want to emphasize this is VERY approximate and poorly controlled. But it gives an indication of what a simple cylindrical projection global photomosaic of Hayabusa would look like. IAU north is at the top. The "head" is at the central (0) meridian. This would not be suitable for any scientific analysis.
Phil
WOW, Phil!
(and thanks, Alex)
Here's a new set of presentation slides from JAXA - based on the Science results but a few extras.
Phil
http://www.isas.jaxa.jp/e/snews/2006/0602.shtml
Thanks for posting, Phil. Very interesting ...
Formation of Itokawa:
There were not many (stretched?) color composites released so far, so that's why I found this one particularly interesting:
I hope posting the slide here doesn't break any of JAXA's copyright rules.
Re: color composites. If I smear some vaseline on my glasses, I can even see the sea otter!
This Japanese Web site has artwork of the various stages of the Hayabusa
mission in detail, from liftoff to the return of its capsule to Earth in 2010:
http://www.bekkoame.ne.jp/~beyond/gallery/forspace2.html
And if you scroll to the bottom of the page, you will also see what their
plans for a solar sail craft may look like.
Information on the Japanese solar sail is here:
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=2290&view=findpost&p=42791
Here:
http://kumano.u-aizu.ac.jp/hayabusa_symp2006/
is the abstract volume (PDF file) for the 2nd Hayabusa Symposium, just concluded. The link to the abstracts is half way down the page.
Phil
From
Pg 18 - Size-frequency distribution of craters on Itokawa.
and
Pg 24 - Characterizing the Muses Sea Geology.
Great stuff
The journal http://www.terrapub.co.jp/journals/EPS/ has issued a http://www.terrapub.co.jp/journals/EPS/pdf/announce/58060793.pdf for special issue entitled "Itokawa-Hayabusa and beyond," currently projected to be published ca. January 2007.
There's a new paper by Hiroi et al. in the September 7, 2006, issue of Nature. See the http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v443/n7107/edsumm/e060907-07.html for a synopsis and links.
Here are some informations about the Hayabusa 2 and the Hayabusa Mark 2.
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/recon2006/pdf/3038.pdf
Nice to see that JAXA apparently intends to soldier on after learning the lessons of H1. NEO exploration is economically & scientifically important.
Hayabusa 2 doesn t look very good. If I understood the blogs correct, Jaxa needs 500 Million Yen (around 4,2 Million US-Dollar) or more in FY 2007 for starting it. However the Ministry of Finance gave only 50 Million Yen ... ...
Is Matsuura really say (where in Internet?), that Hayabusa planning start the return to Earth at 10 Feb 2007. Look here (by Russian) http://www.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=183633&highlight=#183633 M.b. it's a hoax?
From this page on the http://www.hayabusa.isas.jaxa.jp/e/index_42.html, they state March 2007 for starting home, but the Reference-2 image at the bottom of the page shows a date of February 10 (2007/2/10). That's probably where the poster on the Russian forum got that date. A http://www.hayabusa.isas.jaxa.jp/e/index_44.html states "early 2007", and the http://www.hayabusa.isas.jaxa.jp/e/index.html mentioned that the engine C test is planned for January 2007. I think that's about it for official news...
I am very happy to see that http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00000839/about our dear friend Hayabusa \ "It is quick the ぶ" .
There is still a long and difficult mission ahead but she is still alive and the team are bringing her home and I am very glad about that.
Doesn't sound like it will be an easy trip at all, but glad they'll make the attempt. If nothing else, JAXA will learn some extremely valuable engineering lessons, and unfortunately the value of these too often seems to be directly proportional to the pain & effort. Best of luck, guys!
Hayabusa is the little spacecraft that could. Broad ambitions, high risks, and relatively low funding. So go, Hayabusa, go!
This would be amazing - I just hope she has better luck than Nozomi did with the salvage efforts
Considering the fact that it was a test mission, and that it successfully reached the asteroid and returned a lot of fascinating data on a class of world never before observed at close range, I think the mission succeeded in a lot of ways. Its primary mission, however, wasn't science, but to test technology, and it definitely returned data that will help in designing future asteroid sample returns of this type. And it maybe, just maybe, will return with a tiny bit of material...unlikely, but not impossible. Also, had Minerva gone to its intended target, Nereus, which is somewhat larger than Itokawa, it would have had more forgiving margins (though still not very forgiving) on the issue of floating away.
Hayabusa update http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00000839/
We had two Hayabusa topics going, and the cross-posting was getting a bit confusing, so I moved all the recent discussions to this topic and closed the old "http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=870" topic down.
--Emily
ElkGroveDan: "I'm forced to wonder if you would describe a beautiful morning sunrise, as "glaring sun in your eyes that creates a noisy racket of birds squawking." "
Or as Bertie Wooster might prefer, "like a slice of slightly underdone roast beef"
Phil
Oh, I'm not saying that Hayabusa was a failure. Far from it. I'm just saying that to brand her "the little spacecraft that could" when she quite literally could *not* do several of the things she was designed to do is a little bit like calling Galileo a 100% successful mission. Or calling the Ranger program a resounding success because three of the nine spacecraft worked properly. Or like insisting that Deep Impact would have been a really great mission even if it hadn't managed to hit the comet with its impactor. Or like hailing the MERs as great successes even if they had never been able to roll off of their landers.
MGS was a spacecraft that could. So are the MERs. Each achieved all of its pre-flight mission objectives, and then some. Even though Hayabusa returned an awful lot of really good data and images, a lot of its major objectives weren't achieved. I was really looking forward to seeing data from Minerva, for example, and I'm still disappointed that the whole sequence got fouled up.
Hayabusa is at best a partially successful mission. I truly appreciate what it managed to accomplish but to hail it with such superlatives when it partially failed seems wrong to me.
-the other Doug
Yes, Doug, but, with the exception of the early Rangers, the spacecrafts you list were science missions. In other words, their reason to be was science. Hayabusa was an engineering test. Sort of like DS-1, in the sense that any science return was gravy. But its main purpose was to test what did and didn't work so that future, larger science missions wouldn't fail. And it did that - showed a lot of what worked, and showed a lot of things that need to be changed and/or improved. Plus it returned a lot of great science, despite many setbacks that had the potential to be mission ending. And it just might return an asteroid sample. DS-1, while the Borrelly results were cool, never seemed as novel beyond the fact that it used an ion drive - comet and asteroid flybys had been done - but Hayabusa's science, both in what suceeded and what didn't, attempted a lot that was truely new, from landing ,to sample return, to studing such a tiny asteroid, to dropping target markers, to touching down and taking off again, to "hovering" with the asteroid (unlike NEAR, whose target was large enough to truly orbit). This makes it easy to forget that it was a test, and to think of it like Galileo or Deep Impact, whose primary purpose was science.
I thought of Hayabusa as the little spacecraft that could primarily because of what it did as a relatively low cost program. I recall reading that the mission cost was about half that of NEAR, yet in a popular view, provided results of equal visibility. Hayabusa did not return as many images as NEAR to allow several detailed rotation movies to be made, but the views were spectacular nevertheless.
It was just the thought of the little one (relative to big ones like NASA Mars missions) succeeding or at least partially succeeding. The only comparison I can think of now is Beagle had it landed successfully and returned some data from the surface.
Good News: The capsule has been successfully closed toward the return trip.
This is just a summary. The press release is written in Japanese, and too long for me to translate
http://www.isas.jaxa.jp/j/snews/2007/0130.shtml
PRESS RELEASE:
Status of the Hayabusa
http://www.isas.jaxa.jp/e/snews/2007/0406.shtml
Wow -- that's really quite a story of patience in the recovery of a spacecraft...no attitude control fuel left and only one reaction wheel, so they used solar radiation pressure to orient the spacecraft for the return trip!
Indeed. If the payload does in fact make it all the way home, this will be the greatest story of recovery from near-disaster in the history of UMSF! (Not to downgrade the Hayabusa team's efforts to date at all...they've already been far more than remarkable).
I wonder if/when the data from Hayabusa will make it to the PDS
http://pdssbn.astro.umd.edu/missions/hayabusa/index.html
Doug
Hi there.
Exiciting news on "Shin'ya Matsuura's L/D."
http://smatsu.air-nifty.com/lbyd/2007/04/post_ce17.html
I recommend you to see the page above through a Jp-En translation site
or to see JPACE.
http://jspace.misshie.jp/index.php?LbyD%2F20070424
JAXA/ISAS had a press conference on 24th Apr. 16:30 (Japanese time: GMT +9.)
Jun'ichiroh Kawaguchi, Hitoshi Kuninaka and Makoto Yoshikawa talked:
1) They have another press conference on 25th Apr. 17:00.
And they will say "Hayabusa started returning to Earth" in it.
In fact, her engine(*) already started.
2) Finally, everyone can see all datas of Hayabusa's sensors (AMICA, NIRS, LIDAR, XRS and SPICE) since now. (This topic was shown in this forum, wasn't it?)
[1]
* Her engine. not "engineS."
She will fly with only Thruster D and Z-reaction wheel.
Thruster A: standing by. Not stable.
Thruster B: Running time: 9600 hours. performance deteriorated.
Thruster C: Running time: 6500 hours. Not stable.
Thruster D: Running time: 11100 hours.
Each thruster's design service life: 14000 hours.
Prof. Kuninaka said:
I can say there's a orbit to return Earth with one thruster.
But thruster D should run over 20,000 hours in total, and we didn't test it such a long time.
It may possibly run over 20,000.
Prof. Kawaguchi said:
I cannot say too optimistic comment because I'm the project manager of this mission.
Reaction wheel may possibly go wrong. Remind that 2 of 3 already troubled.
Thruster D must run 8,000 - 10,000 more hours if no other thruster can support it.
My intention of today's conference is to report to you "We have such a hard time."
If other thrusters can work...
Each not-stable thruster may run only 1,000 hours. (Kuninaka)
In other words, though, it may help Thruster D (even 1,000 hours). (Kawaguchi & Kuninaka)
[2]
URL: http://hayabusa.sci.isas.jaxa.jp/
Assistant Prof. Yoshikawa said:
The pages are written in English since they're for academic use.
Current datas are "Level 1" (= nearly "raw datas") and some "Level 2"(= calibrated datas.)
"Level 2" datas will be added in future.
JAXA/ISAS is preparing the documents (each data's "when/where/distance/what".)
Please pationt for a while.
On 25th, HAYABUSA team said:
Since 14:30 25th Apr, we can say "she is on her way home."
* Japanese time (GMT +9)
Anyway, I'll pray for her.
Thank you Subaru. That's the kind of information we've all been waiting for. This is an amazing spacecraft, but more importantly it is being operated by an amazing team. Congratulations again go out to the engineers and the entire team.
Echo EGD's kudos to the Hayabusa team. On an engine and a prayer...
Maximum kudos for the update - nice to see some great data coming out of JAXA as well!
Doug
how about a UMSF Hayabusa T-shirt complete with the "It is quick the ぶ" tag.
Yeah I know I get 0/10 for design but I'd wear it, I can't help it I'm a fan.
News in English on Spaceflight Now:
http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0704/25hayabusa/
And Mr. Matsuura's new post (in Japanese):
http://smatsu.air-nifty.com/lbyd/2007/04/post_ac91.html
To his credit - despite never reaching the Pole with his expedition aboard the Endurance - Shackleton got every single crew member home alive
Doug
The happiest ending (after a safe return) would be for at least
a few grains from Itokowa to be found in the sample container.
If Hayabusa succeed and bring back a few grams of sample, should it be considered "Apollo 13" of an unmanned spacecraft?
Keep it on Hayabusa team, we are with you!
If it makes it home without any - it'll be Apollo 13.... It would be Apollo 11 if it actually has some samples
It'll be Hayabusa One - Forever!
Hayabusa, you space falcon... You hear them, baby? Hold together!
(With Harrison-Ford-voice )
"Support" is too weak a word, Subaru...we love her, too, and want her to come home!
I just hope she doesn't run out of... DUCTAPE!
Otherwise known, in NASA curcles, as "the gray tape."
-the other Doug
Hey guys - I've been out of the loop UMSF-wise for some time due to a crunch at work - but wow, great news for Hayabusa. Best of luck to the plucky little bird. I've been saving the below since December of 2005, and I'm very happy to finally post it
===
odave: ROTFL!
That's purely genius.
They'll make it home, though. "They're on a mission from God."
http://www.isas.jaxa.jp/e/snews/2007/0820.shtml
Ion engine C is back working!
Wow, they might make it after all. Their chances of a successful return sounded really dubious, but its great news to see a piece of hardware start working again instead of just more hardware stopping to work... :^)
....and a little more from New Scientist
http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn12536-ignition-of-third-ion-engine-boosts-asteroid-probe.html
- http://www.isas.jaxa.jp/e/snews/2007/0822.shtml
- Hayabusa's distance from Earth (on Aug. 16): 46,930,700 km
-----------------
On July 21, ISAS showed a new movie "[http://www.live-net.co.jp/live/gallery/ex10/01.htm" in the public open day.
Hayabusa's action in the movie is based upon the real telemetry data!
(I saw it and found a big news - Hayabusa was called 'a boy'!)
They said you can see it on the web some months after.
So I made a teaser poster of it (inspired by http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=870&view=findpost&p=28250).
- http://tatooin.hp.infoseek.co.jp/hayabusa/rof_768.jpg
- http://tatooin.hp.infoseek.co.jp/hayabusa/rof_l.jpg
- Original: http://tatooin.hp.infoseek.co.jp/hayabusa/roj.jpg
Hey, Subaru; that's an extremely cool poster!
Hehe, yes, that's way cool!
Anyone know when Doug's birthday is? I bet that would look good in "The Shed" assuming there's any wall space left.
Dec 23
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=3664
Love the poster, Subaru; especially the name of the server it's hosted on!
--Emily
A lovely thought guys - but I'm the only person I know of who actually walked out of a Star Wars movie I disliked it so much. I consider them less like films, more a simple outing for the ego of Lucas. A cool poster, but given my hatred for the inspiring film, not something I could appreciate
Doug
I'm sorry that I reminded you of a unwelcome memory, Doug.
Don't dislike Hayabusa because of it, please?
Like I said - a very cool poster - and Hayabusa is frankly a miracle of the current generation of unmanned exploration - I just hate the movie used as an inspiration for the poster. No offense meant.
Doug
Hitoshi Kuninaka has reported about Hayabusa's coasting.
Below is quick - and poor - translation of http://www.isas.jaxa.jp/j/topics/topics/2007/1029.shtml.
Hayabusa had been flying with an ion engine since this April - and she succeeded first orbit transfer as the schedule.
We stopped her engine on 18th Oct, and stopped the reaction wheel on 24th.
Current status:
Engine run time: 31,000 hour in total
Delta v: 1,700 m/s in total
Propulsive performances and properant : enough
Spin stabilized, using Solar radiation pressure.
The Ion engine(s) and the reaction wheel is restarted after the coasting for Feb.2009.
Required Delta v to return to Earth is only 400 m/s.
Hi, JAXA/ISAS has released "INORI (PRAY): Return of the Falcon" today.
http://spaceinfo.jaxa.jp/inori/en/index.html
You can watch it and download a Windows Media file on the page above.
Thanks for the link, Subaru! Looks pretty slick, but it's a long download (63 Mb), so I'll grab it later today.
Thanks Subaru. I enjoyed that.
That's really rather cool. The bounce of the first landing is real scarey!
Doug
That was great!!! Can't believe how emotional it was in some spots, and the music was just perfect. "Wake up..."; gotta tell ya, that almost got me all watery-eyed; she was down, but definitely not out!
Doug, I'm with you on the first touchdown scary factor...kept waiting for one of the arrays to catch an outcrop or the surface itself...argh, it was agonizing, can only imagine how the team felt afterwards.
Superb, period, and IMHO possibly the best depiction of the drama that really is UMSF. GO HAYABUSA!!!!
Fully agree with last 3 comments, a MUST-SEE (and HEAR) video!
About touchdowns, I ignored (forgot?) that Hayabusa landed and remained 30min on the asteroid surface...
Let's hope about perfect capsule re-entry 3 years from now...
That's science & poetry at once !
I agree with all comments.
I also saw that on the computer graphic side, some people's first name is Masaro.
I knew Dan Maas has to be somewhere in the design
Thanks indeed Subaru
Sheer poetry in motion!!!! Add more points to JAXA (after those wonderful KAGUYA HDTV lunar videos)
JAXA understands science, poetry, and public relations.
Tears again....
Craig
No one seems to have noticed that JAXA has released some updates on Hayabusa in the latest months
http://www.isas.jaxa.jp/e/topics/2008/0602.shtml
http://www.isas.jaxa.jp/e/topics/2008/0306.shtml
but the http://www.isas.jaxa.jp/j/enterp/missions/hayabusa/today.shtml seems to have some additional details
Thanks, Paolo; sure wish I could read the Japanese page, does appear to be the most current...
Sounds like she's still doing alright based on the 2 Jun update, though.
EDIT: Okay, it's a "he", not a "she"; I stand corrected. Also had to watch the video again, and here I am all teary-eyed again, dammit! (What a terrific piece of work that is!)
Here is what Google Translate makes of the Japanese:
Thanks to you, James. My spin is to be taken seriously as my Sun-angle changes throughout the day. But the noise will increase; this is permanent.
(I guess in about 10 years or so we'll have translation software capable of handling idioms...till then, we can all laugh!!! I'm sure that direct English to Japanese translations look kind of goofy as well.)
Good morning Hayabusa!
http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2009/02/20090204_hayabusa_j.html
On 4th Feb. 2009 11:35 a.m. (JST), Hayabusa's ion engine restarted.
"His" RW +Z also restarted before the engine.
The engine and the RW must keep working by March 2010.
English page will be released soon, I think.
[Edit]
English page! : http://www.isas.jaxa.jp/e/topics/2009/0204.shtml
Thanks for the good news, Subaru! Looking forward to the further adventures of the Falcon, and a successful journey home.
If and when Hyabusa makes it home again, it will join the MERs as contenders for 'Most Improbable Survivor of the Century'. It's amazing to me that JAXA is bringing this little bird home after all the damage and malfunctions it sustained in deep space.
It will also be a nervous moment, given the uncertainty of the pellet firings...is there anything in the capsule or not? Based on what I have read I would lean toward "not," but I would love to be wrong!
Emily has a great article about the difficulties getting Hayabusa back under control.
http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00001834/
Attitude control using photon pressure! Those guys need to win some kind of award for that kind of thinking. That is just amazing.
I really doubt there's anything in the capsule, but when it returns nonetheless that engineering team needs a ticker-tape parade through Tokyo.
I'm delighted to see that "It is quick, the ぶ" continues to slowly make her way home. I'll second EGD's suggestion - these guys deserve some sort of award for such a creative solution to a near fatal challenge. I'm sure they would settle for just getting their little bird home though and with that sort of determination I am very hopeful that they will succeed.
As far as the whole mission is concerned, even if the sample return process fails to yield any asteroid particles the overall mission can only be considered a huge success, and a fantastic learning\development process for JAXA.
Slightly off topic but at least it's a Hayabusa thread...
I have just completed a map of Itokawa. The latest Icarus has a paper about craters on Itokawa. It includes images I've been looking for for a long time, the Itokawa shape model with latitude-longitude grids superimposed. (They were shown at LPSC a few years ago but not available until now). They give the positional control needed to make a map. My map is created using a set of Itokawa shape model renderings which can be seen here:
http://hayabusa.sci.isas.jaxa.jp/shape.pl
A later version (much later...) will be created out of actual images of the asteroid, at higher resolution than this one. But this map provides the intermediate geometric control needed for that later map. There are some distortions around 0 long, -30 lat where the surface grazes the radii in the shape model, causing a cartographic black hole like an overhanging cliff on a terrestrial map. The map is fudged a bit in that area. (can you say 'fudged' on the internet? - oops, I did it again).
Phil
Wow, that is incredible!
I was wondering how Phil was progressing with the Itokawa map. Glad to see you've got it finished.
JAXA just sent me a plastic model of Itokawa (I'll post a pic as soon as I corral a digital photographer) that I'll use to make a constant-scale natural boundary map of the asteroid.
If anyone is interested, I'll also post pics of the map-making process -- YO, FORUM ADMINISTRATOR! Any chance of getting these last three posts snipped out of this thread and placed in a new topic, with title of, say, "Mapping Itokawa"?
Can't wait for the photomosaic map. Any predictions, Phil, on availability?
Hi Chuck - I'm not working on it at the moment, I'm too tied up with other things. And if Phobos-Grunt is launched this year I will do a new Phobos mosaic first. So it will be a while.
Phil
Well, this map will work just fine for the first effort.
And i suppose there is always the chance that some one at JAXA will put one together.
Hi Chuck, I am happy and relieved that you've got an Itokawa model.
Tayfun,
Please keep me in your fabrication schedule though. The JAXA model is impressive in size -- the equal of one of your models, but it does not have latitude and longitude scorings on it. It will serve, because I can mark them by eye (using the Icarus paper's images), but a higher level of inaccuracy is inevitable. So whenever Phil gets around to the photomosaic, let's revisit a fabrication by you.
Stay tuned.
Some updates (in Japanese only alas) http://www.isas.ac.jp/j/enterp/missions/hayabusa/today.shtml
Hayabusa has apparently entered safe mode on 13 august, but the Earth return should not be affected
The main ion engine D has been inactive because of aging degradation since 4th NOV. The team has been trying to restart it but not succeeded yet.
http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2009/11/20091109_hayabusa_j.html (Japanese)
Other three main engines' status are as below:
Engine A: Inactive because of electronic instability since MAY 2003, shortly after the launch
Engine B: Disabled because of aging degradation since APR 2007
Engine C: Operable but inactive because of aging degradation
A newspaper says that Engines A/B have also been unable to be restarted. If it's true, the aged Engine C is the only operable thruster.
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/space/news/20091109-OYT1T00774.htm (Japanese)
Pray for his safe return, please.
If no engines work, can it get home ?
So it all hangs on Engine C. *crosses fingers* To lose the sample return at this stage would be a cruel fate.
Hayabusa had to make 200m/s acceleration at August 2009. He has plenty fuel to do it but the problem is the main engines: All but Engine A have already been running over their rated life by far. The Engines C/D have weakened from 8.5mN of rated power to 5mN.
In addition, even if Engine C manages to continue to work until June, the probe will run into another major problem; orbit maneuver. The team planned to accelerate him with Engines C/D until March and then to make some orbit maneuvers for atmosphere entry during inertial flight. With only one engine, however, Hayabusa will have to continue to accelerate until the very last minute. It means he will have to do a big maneuver in a short period of time. As you know he has already lost a major part of abilities to do it. It's going to be a very tough operation.
English articles have been uploaded:
http://blogs.nature.com/news/thegreatbeyond/2009/11/engine_trouble_for_already_tar.html
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0911/09hayabusa/
Does anybody by any chance have the current orbital details, kernels or similar for Hayabusa?
Jaxa is holding a press conference about Hayabusa at 1800-1900 JST (+9:00) this evening. I'll follow it as soon as possible.
HAYABUSA keeps coming back!
http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2009/11/20091119_hayabusa_j.html (JP)
# Sorry, I cannot tell you details because I have no Jp-En dictionally now.
@Subaru
According to the press release, the team has managed to combine the neutralizer of Engine A and the ion source of Engine B; they can provide as much power as one engine (6.5 mN). With Engine C, the team can secure equivalent power to two engines now.
Hayabusa will be able to return in Jun 2010 as the team has planed.
[EDIT]
- Engines A/B/D can no longer stand alone.
- They won't use Engines A/B and C simultaneously. Engine C will be regarded as a back-up as long as possible.
- Combining two engines has never been tested on the ground but it has been working for one week (180 hours). It has been managed thanks to an emergency circuit.
- Combining two engines requires twice as much power/fuel as standards but Hayabusa has plenty resource. 5kg of fuel will be required to gain 200m/s (2000 hours) acceleration while Hayabusa still has 20kg of fuel.
- The acceleration will continue until mid Mar 2010.
- The situation doesn't allow premature conclusions. If more troubles happen, e.g. Engines A/B stop before the end of the year, the team will have to consider another plan about 2013-returning.
[EDIT 2]
Prof. Jun'ichiro Kawaguchi, the project manager said, "If we fail to bring back the probe, it will be the same no matter when it become clear, early or late. Whether we can do it or not is the matter."
Sounds like good news. The 2013 option not so good though.
An English article has been uploaded:
http://spacespin.org/article.php/91143-restoration-hayabusa-return-cruise
@MahFL
Prof. Kawaguchi said that the 2013 option would go far beyond the rated life of Hayabusa, so he would like to avoid it as much as possible, a few years ago.
[EDIT]
Other English articles:
http://planetary.org/blog/article/00002221/
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0911/19hayabusa/
Brilliant! The saga continues!
If the collection capsule is returned, even if it contains no sample, it will be one of the greatest accomplishments in the history of unmanned spaceflight. Unmanned spaceflight's Apollo 13!
Hi Chuck, It'll be a while before I can do what you want. I would like to make a photomosaic map of Itokawa, but I want to do a lot of things... so it might be a year before I can get to it. A new map of Phobos has to come first.
Phil
Quote removed - Mod
Yeah, I was grasping at straws, hoping it'd be just a few mouse clicks (like we architects now do with our CAD programs) to at least pop a few shadows on to bring out the form. Sounds like that's a stretch. Oh well. At least with constant-scale natural boundary maps the shape itself has content, and we'll all have to be content with that for a while . . .
Maybe just making a high contrast version of it would suit your purposes?
Phil
Absolutely by all means yes please most grateful.
The instrument itself may be pretty dead by now, but here is an interesting paper from arXiv
http://arxiv.org/abs/0912.4797
So Phil, I've got the first layout nearly complete.
how is that high contrast adjustment coming along?
Chuck
Recent Spaceflightnow article
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n1001/11hayabusa/
Go Hayabusa!
if the capsule lands successfully, with or without grains, this mission combines the successes of the Galileo probe and the Stardust mission. Awesome!
This is great news - the JAXA team deserve a little bit of luck now - they've solved a seemingly endless series of problems and still managed to bring this wonderful little bird almost all the way home, " It is quick the ぶ" is definitely my favourite little spacecraft that could.
We should think about sending the team some crates of these:
Chuck mentioned the high contrast version of my previous map, and I'll put it here in case anyone else is interested in it as well.
I think the Galileo comparison is in terms of the amount of trials and tribulations the team has gone through to succeed.
The solution to combine parts of two broken ion engines to make one working engine seems comparable to the antenna solution and related software upgrade for Galileo.
Oh, you mean the whole mission. When you said probe, I was thinking of the atmospheric probe, which is where I got confused.
Philip,
One problem with the new, high-contrast map -- could you remake it and include 10 degree graticles, like your low-contrast map? Otherwise I have to rough them in with Photoshop, which is nowhere near as accurate as you can do.
Here's how the constant-scale natural boundary map looks at the moment. (The one pasted square is off the low-contrast map.)
Sorry. I thought you'd prefer it without a grid. You realize you could just take the original post and crank up the contrast in Photoshop, right? But I can send the other version to you tomorrow.
Phil
No, I didn't realize that was just a Photoshop tweak. I thought you were fiddling with the 3-D file; you know, adding shades and shadows or something along those lines. I'll give it a whirl, but in case I don't get the hang of contrast adjustment, please go ahead and post the gridded, high-contrast version.
EDIT: Okay, I figured out what to do. For all you Photoshop novices out there, Phil, I think, actually did a "levels" adjustment. When I tried just a "brightness/contrast" adjustment, I lost the lost and bottom ends (the brightest whites and the darkest darks) of the pixel spread. This is easy to keep in a levels adjustment. (I've got the adjusted image on an off-line machine so can't easily post my results here, but give a me a day or so (to cut and paste) and I'll post the full constant-scale natural boundary map.
Phil, thanks for the hand-holding session.
Murphy's Law.
When I tried to crank up the contrast on the gridded map, it affected the grid lines themselves, casting ghost-lines into the imagery proper. So I used Phil's ungridded, high-contrast map and added the graticles as a separate layer. Results are much cleaner. By the way, Phil, thanks for using a divisible-by-360 pixel size, so easy to add the lines onto it.
Here's how things look so far.
Hayabusa would miss Earth by just 1 million km if the ion drives completely fail at this stage:
http://www.jspec.jaxa.jp/e/activity/hayabusa.html
New update at the above link, Hayabusa's trajectory on February 3rd would see it come within 750,000 km of Earth.
Is Hayabusa flying by earth against earth's orbit around the sun?
Edit: It will pass inside the earth/moon system after earth has passed spring equinox. The angle on the third graph looked scarier at first glance.
So, if I read the charts correctly, does this mean that the potential capsule recovery is June 2010?
That was my impression. JAXA is apparently being extremely careful not to commit to a specific re-entry date, which may be prudent for expectation management. IIRC, there are also long-standing security/safety issues of some sort which I don't understand very well; perhaps they're concerned about spectators entering the recovery area & either being hurt or interfering with the recovery effort?
AFAIK Hayabusa is slated to land in the desert in Australia, much of which is a restricted zone (thanks to nuke testing some decades ago) anyway. Plus it's huge, and many parts are not easily accessible, so i dont think that's a major problem.
I've been wondering about that as well, albeit at sort of the other extreme. They probably do indeed have a tight landing window, but until (& unless) the thrusters get them to where they need to be to release the capsule they sure don't specify it.
Hayabusa's drive seems to offer so much flexibility in some ways, though; I don't really know what to expect.
You know, that actually might be the rub in all this. It's probably much easier to set up a survivable reentry trajectory than to define a landing area with great precision at this point considering, as you said, Dan, the many challenges Hayabusa continues to face. They may not yet know where they can land it with any degree of certainty.
A survivable re-entry trajectory might include getting to a specific angle. The whole "too steep you burn up, too shallow you bounce off" analogy that gets thrown around every time an unbound spacecraft comes flying toward Earth. If indeed a specific angle is needed (give or take an acceptable margin), then it narrows the permissible landing sites quite a bit to a circle concentric with Earth's disk in Hayabusa's sky.
Yeah, not saying that this won't be resolved quite quickly once she gets within range. The biggest variable now seems to be actual arrival date & time at the ejection point, which of course will affect the part of the world that the capsule can reach.
Anybody know if it floats?
With it being designed to land in a desert, I'd have to go with no.
I think the arrival time can be "adjusted", within limits. 100 days out from Earth, my sim tells me the delta-v required to delay your arrival by 24 hours and maintaining the same entry angle is around 50 - 60 m/s. Hayabusa should be able to make such an adjustment (or less thereof, to make sure Australia is there as well at that time), either as an independent maneuver or built into the current thrusting (through spacecraft attitude). I would think the latter is built into the mission planning anyway. Unfortunately I have no access to any software to properly simulate / calculate this.
Question regarding landing in water: has any UNMANNED mission (other than unmanned Apollos etc) ever intentionally set down in water? How would you find the craft even with a beacon ... it ain't that big anymore :-)
IIRC, there have been aerial snags of film canisters dropped from early earth 'observation' satellites. Some may have been over water, and it would seem likely there may have been a miss or two. Due to the sensitive nature of the observations, it would be likely the authorities would mount considerable effort to retrieve anything that went astray.
Seems like I have seen a film of a successful aerial snag somewhere . . . .
LOL, Paolo, thanks for recalling the name of the project for me. Most likely there would be no confirmation of any 'splashdowns' in that project.
The 50m/s is indeed a lot, not sure how accurate that number is. So I dont think that they dont know yet when entry will occur; it be pretty much targeted for already ever since the thrusting resumed. The question is of course whether they make it, or whether something else starts to act up on the craft.
Did some "research" on Wikipedia. Entry timeline is as follows:
Some interesting info from the Hayabusa re-entry observation campaign:
http://airborne.seti.org/hayabusa/mission.html
dang, now we gotta worry about overheating?
With JAXA releases it's always hard to know what precisely is meant; a lot is lost in translation. (This is not to criticize JAXA; I'm grateful that they put out stuff in English at all.) When I read the sentence about heating, my first reaction was "uh-oh," but then I considered for a bit and decided it was more likely they're just talking about the fact that they haven't had to expend effort dealing with heating in the past, when Hayabusa was farther from the Sun, and that the issue is just coming to the forefront now; that it's not an unexpected problem. But it's really impossible to know which is the truth without actually asking someone in JAXA. I can try to explore the issue a bit and see if there's anything more revealing in the Japanese version of the update.
Hayabusa's trajectory now almost skimming the Moon's orbit
http://www.hayabusa.isas.jaxa.jp/e/index.html
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