Updated info just released by JAXA:

2010/05/14 19:46:30: Hayabusa Brochure and Mission Patch
Category: 2010_English
Posted by: HayabusaLive
See our new brochure depicting Hayabusa's mission ovrview, reentry/recovery ops, achievement and sample analysis:

• HAYABUSA return to the Earth (PDF4.2MB)
http://www.isas.jaxa.jp/e/topics/2010/imag..._hayabusa_e.pdf

Hayabusa mission patch including departure by M-V, Itokawa, target marker, MINERVA, ion engines and capsule descent! [not displayed]

Trajectory Profile
may 10, 2010

Hayabusa completed the correction TCM-1
It was the Hayabusa's 7 years old birthday yesterday.
TCM-1 was successfully performed between May 1st and May 4th, last week. The distance to the Earth seems to have been reduced not so much.

2010/05/04 13:16:32:
TCM-1 operation was successfully completed


JAXA confirmed that TCM-1 operation was successfully completed.
By this operation, Hayabusa spacecraft was guided to the outer rim
of the Earth and the distance between Hayabusa spacecraft and the Earth
resulted in around 16,600,000km far. The Hayabusa spacecraft system
is going well.

Speaking of feeling 'gushy', does anyone else here have the impression, as I do, of trying to sip from a fire hose in the last few days? Even Sky and Telescope's Kelly Beatty has 'come clean' on details he had been sitting on: http://www.skyandtelescope.com/news/91854724.html

Thank you!! I've tried to clean it up with a few word choices that may make meaning more clear. Here's my own guess:


November 2009, all of the ion engines were gone and we were forced to stop Hayabusa operation. However, we subsequently succeeded in mobilising all that could be utilised and that made him resume his flight home.

While celebrating the resumed Hayabusa operation I was finding myself in mixed feelings. "Hayabusa, perhaps does not want to get home..." We all know that the destiny that awaits Hayabusa was a fiery burnout in the atmosphere. That, of course, is immediately following the capsule release.

"Why have you had to respond, so faithfully, to our repeated commands?" -- "Why did you go out of your way to be near us now?"

We were thinking about saving you by all means, but on the other hand we all knew as well as you do that your destiny was inevitable. We did toy with the idea of aerodynamic jumping off the atmosphere back into interplanetary space.

However, our repeated investigations indicated that aerodynamic heating just prior to that will burn you out.
There is no chance of saving you, I am afraid...

We only have one chance of successful re-entry operation. We need to get everything right. However, this immaculate preparation is certain to orchestrate the cruel death of you, Hayabusa...

On reflection we all knew that in 2006 when chemical propulsion ceased to exist. We did not want to tell you not to come back, although we also knew our absolute preparedness for your return was a cruel process.

Then, perhaps the capsule release reflects your own aspirations, Hayabusa, carrying your hope for successor missions.

At the end of March this year when the last of long duration ion engine operation came to a halt I was caught by the same feeling once again. However, I also became aware of your determination to return the capsule to us.

We will gracefully receive it from you and let your wish materialise...

You are absolutely malfunctioning, no doubt about that, and just recently all other signs of aging started appearing.

Bit flipping in your RAM recorder, and DHU, your brain, and even with your gyro. Hayabusa actions are no longer far from stable and you yourself must know that, that you are coming to the end of your useful life...

You will no longer be able to fly for any length of time. It therefore just recently dawned on me that the best way to reward you is to successfully operate the re-entry manouver.

New English-language Hayabusa site at JAXA:

http://hayabusa.jaxa.jp/e/

Kyodo: Japanese Spacecraft, Returning From Asteroid, To Land in Australia
0840 GMT // Apr 21, 2010
http://home.kyodo.co.jp/modules/fstStory/i...?storyid=496932

The story quotes the Australian Defence ministry to reveal that:

"The probe, launched by the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) in 2003 with the task of collecting samples from the asteroid Itokawa, will land in the Woomera Prohibited Area, in southwestern Australia."

source:
Japanese spacecraft to land at Australia's Woomera range in June
Australian Department of Defence web site in English 21 Apr 10
http://www.minister.defence.gov.au/Faulkne...CurrentId=10170

Keep a close eye on the Japanese-language Hayabusa site in the hours and days ahead:

(http://hayabusa.jaxa.jp)

Super gratitude for this unique insight into their thinking and acting!!

Wonderful, thanks! I interpret the comment to be a reference to Hayabusa's autonomous navigation system, and the performance of a mid-course correction. It would have been more helpful to know the aim point for the maneuver as well as the accomplished point, because the big challenge is using ion drive for accomplishing what was supposed to be done with the now-inoperable hydrazine engine system.

.

JAXA's English-language twitter has just posted

http://twitter.com/Hayabusa_JAXA

JAXA's Asteroid Explorer Hayabusa Team
has just started tweeting hot topics toward
the upcoming return of Hayabusa to Earth.
Follow us! (dV)

But I've tried babelfish and really can't
make much sense of the messages....

They have badly misread news media dynamics and are going to be sorry. Secrecy is the 'clue' for failure and bad news, and that's usually a correct interpretation for space events, as old Soviet -- and some old NASA -- practices demonstrated. Brutal honesty about setbacks usually earns the respect and credibility it deserves. The Russians have learned this, and the Chinese, and it's usually been NASA's watchword as well (sadly, not always).

As for earning respect, the story of Hayabusa -- and Nozomi before it -- is one of pure human triumph, an Apollo-13 scale demonstration of human ingenuity and inspiration, the very best attributes of modern culture, inspiration for future endeavors. That remains true whatever the final outcome of the mission.

History holds deep respect for bold explorers who reached too far and lost against overwhelming odds. Those who didn't give up have earned the highest marks. At the very LEAST, Hayabusa ranks among them -- and could well go even higher.

I hope my treatment of the subject over the entire mission has been an encouragemnt of respect for the boldness of the concept and the skill and verve of its execution. See http://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/robotic...piece-of-heaven

Didn't the poet say, "A man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?" In modern terms, substitute for 'heaven', the phrase 'outer space'.

roger wilco.

Anybody capture the original post and can share? I can't find the updated one, either.

Nope, skipped over that page. Thanks for wake-up slap!!

I'm being advised to expect entry "in the first half of June but not by much" --
probably code for June 13-14. Stay tuned all -- the power of these pooled minds is awesome, as is the mission itself.

It's worth inventing the "Montgomery Scott Memorial Spaceship Engine Kludge" award and giving it to the team right now, no matter what happens...

Is power required to deploy the parachute? No juice -- no chute?

Still, there can be hope -- we've successfully recovered interplanetary samples from another probe that crashed to earth with no parachute!

I'm still confused about how the final midcourse maneuvers will be performed.

Hydrazine thrusters? Consensus is, it's all gone, tanks are empty.

Ion drive? Does the geometrical constraint of thrusting along the line-of-sight to sun eliminate this?

Xenon venting? Doesn't that also introduce rotational rates that take days to damp out?

Can anybody illuminate this critical question?

Just posted -- and based on the most recent press report from JAXA, containing several errors.
We can fix them in the online edition.

Bringing Back a Piece of Heaven
http://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/robotic...piece-of-heaven

BY JAMES OBERG // MARCH 2010
23 March 2010—A small, severely damaged spacecraft named Hayabusa is limping back to Earth with a jury-rigged ion drive that would have made Star Trek’ s Scotty proud. Already seven years into its planned five-year mission to retrieve soil samples from an asteroid, the probe faces one last round of hazards before its midnight landing in Australia sometime in June with a sample canister.

So do we interpret the Hayabusa office announcement to mean that the ion drive has now been restarted for the final course correction?

What is the health of the hydrazine thruster system that is to be used for last course corrections aiming at the midnight landing in Australia.

They seem concern about hydrazine ice melting, perhaps restarting the leak. The probe's black body temperature is apparently nearing the melting point of pure hydrazine -- is there a special version of 'hydrazine' they are using?

I haven't been able to get any more precise planning dates for landing than 'earlier than mid-month'.

When is the closest Itokawa flyby, and how far? Seems absolutely implausible to detect a Minerva-sized object by skin track or optically at the presumed ranges.

I'll definitely be writing about this dramatic final hurdle for my media clients.

jim O

www.jamesoberg.com