Hayabusa - The Return To Earth, The voyage home Options

[ljk4-1]

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?

[elakdawalla]

Shin-ya Matsuura's transcript is up in Japanese. Here's the pretty terrible Google translation. Sounds like little in the way of good news --Emily

[lyford]

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.

BWAH?!?!?!

"JAXA: Rather than it is better and being faster it is cheap."

[elakdawalla]

A cooperative translation project is taking place here...keep refreshing the screen, they are working diligently on the translation.

--Emily

[lyford]

If the ion engines are ignited again by the 2007 spring, the vehicle can return to the earth on June 2010.

2010? Any massive solar flares scheduled between now and then? I don't know if I can take another Nozomi experience.

I can't even begin to imagine what it would be like to be an engineer on these missions - the long hard work of trying to bring the falcon home to roost. It's crazy making enough as a spectator to see the constant ups and downs - 2 bullets fired! No bullets fired! Sample! No Sample! Leak! "Salvation Mode" let alone having to troubleshoot the beast.

[lyford]

From the translation:
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!

Asahi Shimbun Press: Is there a possibility for accidents of other equipment by three-year extension? And what about the running cost during the extension?

Kawaguchi: Of course, the probability of equipment accidents will increase. We have to restart them from the almost freezing state. The figures I put before does not mean that "it can return to the earth with 70% probability"; it means that "for the 70% probability of communication recovery, we will continue the operation."

And this doesn't sound too promising:

Astronomy Monthly(Gekkan Tenmon): Are there any change in your view on the sample retrieval after these events? How much scientific discovery could you make out at this point? You're experiencing another difficult situation now, what is the biggest lesson you've learned in these troubleshooting experience?

Kawaguchi: We haven't been able to download any new data, so our view is still unchanged. Status of the vehicle did change, and there are possibility of data being lost. If minimum power supply is available the data will hold, but we can't tell for sure at this point.

As for scientific discovery, we still have undisclosed informations, but the science community plans to open them to the public as soon as possible.

There are considerable amount of information that only Hayabusa could gather. We won't be repeating on its content for today. At some future date we will publish a formal summary. I consider that these results funded by national taxes should be primarily available to this country. We fear that if these data spread, any researcher from other countries could release a paper as first author. And of course contribution to the world must be considered, too.

[amezz]

If the probe is going to hang around Itokawa for almost another year, will it continue to study the planetoid?

Yes! They MUST do it, we all hope to see once more the Enigmatic Stone Garden of Itokawa

[ljk4-1]

*** 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_...busa_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

[nop]

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/2005/12/2...7.html#c5380890
http://smatsu.air-nifty.com/lbyd/2005/12/1...2.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 !

[abalone]

Guys, wait with patience for the return in 2010 !

By then it would have to qualify for Saint Hayabusa

[djellison]

All sounds a little bit Nozomi-ish really I just hope they can keep the think held together for another 5 years

Doug

[ljk4-1]

All sounds a little bit Nozomi-ish really   I just hope they can keep the think held together for another 5 years

Doug

Speaking of which - is Nozomi still alive? Is it returning any data on the interplanetary environment?

Any chance it could make another attempt at Mars down the road? If JAXA thinks Hayabusa can last five more years, why not Nozomi?

[nop]

Speaking of which - is Nozomi still alive?  Is it returning any data on the interplanetary environment?

Any chance it could make another attempt at Mars down the road?  If JAXA thinks Hayabusa can last five more years, why not Nozomi?

Nozomi is alive, I think, but it lost the way to send data to us. Though it captured pictures of the Mars surface from 1000km altitude even on the day of the last operation in 2003, we have no way to get them. We cannot even locate the probe. The transmitter was stopped according to some laws. Now it circles the sun as an artificial planet.

P.S. I fixed my mistake about the year of the last operation. (2004 -> 2003)

[ljk4-1]

Nozomi is alive, I think, but it lost the way to send data to us.  Though it captured pictures of the Mars surface from 1000km altitude even on the day of the last operation in 2004, we have no way to get them.  We cannot even locate the probe.  The transmitter was stopped according to some laws.  Now it circles the sun as an artificial planet.

Japan should send out a rescue mission (or ask someone else to do it) to collect both Nozomi and Hayabusa to recover their data and samples. I admit it may take a while to find Nozomi.

While they are at it, someone should find Mariner 9 and get those last few images it took that are still stored aboard the probe. See Carl Sagan's The Cosmic Connection for the details.

[djellison]

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