[X] My Assistant

[hendric]

Anyone seen any recent updates on this? Last I saw was in December timeframe. We're so spoiled with MER now, I look at the MUSES-C website and just shake my head...

[cIclops]

Anyone seen any recent updates on this?  Last I saw was in December timeframe.  We're so spoiled with MER now, I look at the MUSES-C website and just shake my head...

Thanks for the reminder! It seems to be happily on its way to rendezvous with Itokawa, according to this readable NASA site. Of course it's going to do more than just rendezvous, it'll land, take a sample and return to Earth!

[hendric]

Anyone seen any recent updates on this?  Last I saw was in December timeframe.  We're so spoiled with MER now, I look at the MUSES-C website and just shake my head...

Thanks for the reminder! It seems to be happily on its way to rendezvous with Itokawa, according to this readable NASA site. Of course it's going to do more than just rendezvous, it'll land, take a sample and return to Earth!

Well, I guess no news is good news...I tried the Muses-C/Hayabusa website, but all it had was an outline, no details on instruments or a detailed mission timeline.

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

The word I've been seeing from abstracts in places like the recent LPSC meeting is that it is continuing to work absolutely perfectly -- which makes it stand out like a non-sick thumb in Japan's ill-fated recent space program. We'll see.

[djellison]

People berrated the poor ESA Press efforst around Huygens landing. It was a PR masterstroke compared to the japanese space program

Doug

[ilbasso]

Do you suppose the lack of news is a cultural thing?

[tedstryk]

Hard to tell. Also, with the way things have been going, the lack of PR may be do to the poor results in the Japanese program in the last few years. If Hayabusa is a great success, it will be interesting to see how that is publicized.

[Gsnorgathon]

I'm having a slight flashback to the early Soviet space program...

[tedstryk]

True, but outright denial and claims of sabatoge are on a different level than just not saying much.

[odave]

The newest issue of Sky and Telescope (June 2005) has a nice writeup on Hayabusa, as well as a cover story on Deep Impact.

I'm a subscriber, so get mine a little early - I don't think it's available at newsstands yet. Lots of planetary stuff in this issue, it's probably a good one to pick up!

[tedstryk]

I will second that!

[maycm]

A possible answer to the non-information here....

http://www.space.com/news/jaxa_trouble_050428.html

[Bob Shaw]

See my comments in the Manned Spaceflight thread; Japan's space enterprises are sadly ineffectual.

Now, India...

[maycm]

An update....


http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8131678/

[Bob Shaw]

That's one hard place they're in - I hope they succeed...

[djellison]

I cant wait to see what imagery we get from the 'hopper' - it will be the first PROPER landing on a small body if they can pull it off

Doug

[Toma B]

I have just find this site... Maybe they are updating it daily

Today's Hayabusa

[djellison]

Wow - it's not far out now

It's closing speed is very slow as I understand though.

Doug

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

Astro-E2 has just been successfully launched:
http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2005/07/20050710_m-v-6_e.html

Is it possible that Japan is finally coming out of its space funk? (Although the solar-panel problem with Hayabusa is worrisome. It's increasingly apparent that radiation is not only the biggest threat to manned deep-space travel; it's a serious problem for the UNMANNED variety.)

[deglr6328]

So I guess it DID launch with some type of external mobile device! I kept hearing conflicting reports that nasa was supposed to supply the tiny rover and it didn't and then that it wasn't going to have one at all and now that it does have a hopper. Was it slapped together quick after the nasa nanorover deal fell through or planned on al along or what...? This site doesn't say too much....

[Stephen]

So I guess it DID launch with some type of external mobile device! I kept hearing conflicting reports that nasa was supposed to supply the tiny rover and it didn't and then that it wasn't going to have one at all and now that it does have a hopper. Was it slapped together quick after the nasa nanorover deal fell through or planned on al along or what...? This site doesn't say too much....

Try this LPI (PDF) page instead. It's fairly brief, but it does tell you a little about the little "hopper" craft (called "Minerva", BTW).

This Wikipedia page also has some (less technical) tidbits, while this JAXA page looks like it might be useful.

In general, though, this press release seems to sum up pretty much all that's out there about Minerva:

"Upon its arrival at the asteroid in the summer of 2005, the Hayabusa spacecraft will hover near the asteroid's surface for about four months. Its instruments will study the surface in detail, determine the asteroid's mass and bulk density and determine which minerals are present. A small coffee-can-sized surface hopper, called MINERVA, will leap about the asteroid taking surface temperature measurements and high-resolution images with each of its three miniature cameras."

[deglr6328]

Its at less than .5 earth-moon distance now. Still no images....? I need "more detaile"!!

[Phil Stooke]

The reason there are no images is simple: the asteroid is only a few hundred m across, so from 150 000 km it would only be a pixel or two across in an image. The camera is designed to operate from 20 km distance. They are presumably taking navigation images, but not worth releasing.

Phil

[djellison]

Yeah - this is one TINY asteroid - I think Dactyl ( Ida's tiny moon - an asteroid that Galileo flew past en route to Jupiter) is the only thing even remotely on the same size - but the asteroid Hayabusa is visiting is even smaller than THAT

It's like visiting a single block of houses.

Doug

[maycm]

I've been tracking the distance to target from this website.

On June 13th it was 135,172Km
On June 21st it is 97,614Km

Getting closer!

At this rate they will be there in a couple more weeks.

[maycm]

Update from the webpage indicated above.

Hayabusa is entering into the conjunction area that defined 3 degrees of view angle from the sun since second week of July.

Hayabusa will be out from the conjunction area on end of July and will be restarted ordinary operation.

During the conjunction period, Ion Engine System (IES) is stopped. On beginning of August, IES will be operated again.

On middle of September, Hayabusa will reach to the asteroid Itokawa

[tedstryk]

I am very interested to see an asteroid of this size close up. I am curious to see if it has any significant loose material on its surface, given its low gravity. I am also wondering how, if the mission is successful, the Japanese will do with image releases. They haven't ever had much to release - there were a few neat Nozomi pictures, but they were highly compressed and limited in quantity. The ultraviolet image results from Susei were very limited as well, and were of course pre-internet era. I hope that they will improve their releases if they have a successful imaging mission.

[Phil Stooke]

This page:

http://pds-smallbodies.astro.umd.edu/missi...busa/index.html

gives some information on plans for data archiving. It looks as if PDS will hold the Hayabusa archive. Which is good news for everybody, I would say.

Arival in mid-September... Darn! I'll be on vacation at the time. I'll have to sneak into an internet cafe for my fix.

Phil

[maycm]

Distance to target:

July 21st : 97,614Km
August 1st : 63,0808km

Closer....closer...

[tedstryk]

This looks cool:

In-situ exploration of the surface of asteroid Itokawa by MINERVA engineering rover on board HAYABUSA
Sho Sasaki
Tetsuo Yoshimitsu
Masahisa Yanagisawa
Hajime Yano
Keisuke Teramoto




National Astronomical Observatory of Japan
ISAS/JAXA
Univ. Electro-Comm.
ISAS/JAXA
ISAS/JAXA




ISAS/JAXA in Japan has launched an engineering spacecraft Hayabusa to Itokawa, a small S-type asteroid with approximate size 600m x 300m. A small rover called MINERVA (MIcro/Nano Experimental Robot Vehicle for Asteroid) is on board HAYABUSA. The rover has a hexadecagonal shape with diameter 12cm and heigh 10cm. Weight of the rover is 591g. MINERVA, which is the first asteroid rover in the world, will be deployed onto the surface of Itokawa at altitude around 17m shortly before the surface sampling touch-down of Hayabusa. After landing on the surface, MINERVA moves over the surface autonomously by hopping for a couple of days. On rotating a torquer inside the rover, a reaction force against the surface friction can hop the rover. MINERVA has three CCD cameras (RGB color) to capture surface images. Two of the cameras consist of a stereo pair and have short focal length to observe nearby targets, and the last camera has focal length to observe more distant targets. To protect solar cells, MINERVA has 16 pins sticking out of both ends of the body. Six of the pins are thermal probes by which variation of surface temperature is directly measured. The scientific objectives of MINERVA are as follows: (1) To obtain images of the asteroid surface in visible wavelength. (2) To construct a detailed surface model especially using stereo images taken by short-focal length pair cameras. To discuss presence and characteristics (sand/rock ratio etc.) of surface regolith. (3) To obtain the brightness and color variation of the surface especially for discussing the ongoing space weathering. (4) To investigate the thermal properties of the surface regolith from temperature history of the same place. (5) To measure local gravity direction and surface friction coefficient.
Presenting author: Sho Sasaki

[Toma B]

...just find this...

JPL radar model of Itokawa!!!

Source:

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[tedstryk]

...just find this...

JPL radar model of Itokawa!!!

Source:

Cool! Great find.

[Phil Stooke]

Phil reporting from vacation la-la-land... there is a much more detailed up-to-date model of Itokawa from more recent radar data. I will post info when home on 19th...

Phil

[paxdan]

Phil reporting from vacation la-la-land... there is a much more detailed up-to-date model of Itokawa from more recent radar data. I will post info when home on 19th...

Phil

you tease

[Phil Stooke]

Oh yes, I'm a tease.

This shape result will be revealed at the DPS in September (Ostro has a good abstract on it), but an animation of it can be found at:

http://www.jaxa.jp/news_topics/column/no13/p3_e.html

(lower on page).

I made a composite view of different sides by grabbing frames from it. But I shouldn't really post it! So just look at the animation. When I get back to my office I might be able to do more.

Phil

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

Given the fact that Japan has now added to its near-perfect record of recent space failure by losing the crucial instrument on Astro-E2 due to a liquid helium leak, I sincerely hope they don't bungle Hayabusa. If they do, maybe they had better consider getting out of space exploration completely until they either fund it properly and/or revamp their management system.

[tedstryk]

Given the fact that Japan has now added to its near-perfect record of recent space failure by losing the crucial instrument on Astro-E2 due to a liquid helium leak, I sincerely hope they don't bungle Hayabusa.  If they do, maybe they had better consider getting out of space exploration completely until they either fund it properly and/or revamp their management system.

Glad people didn't say that of us after the sixth consecutive Ranger failure, after all the Pioneer Moon failures, and the fact that the first two Mariner pairs lost a spacecraft and the Mariner 4 spacecraft had to have its ultraviolet photometer removed and had a camera light leak.

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

First, all the Pioneer Moon failures were launch failures very early in the US space program -- akin to the inability Japan had to successfully launch a satellite for 4 straight years. Their current monotonous parade of failures, however, is occurring at a time when they SHOULD have a command of space technology, and in fact they used to have a much better success record. One internal government study had already indicated that much of this was due to attempts to fly wildly overambitious missions on much too small a budget -- but the problems seem to be continuing even after the measures they had announced to try to correct this.

Second, JPL DID come within a hair of having the Ranger program taken away from them, after four straight spacecraft failures. Had Ranger 7 failed, they certainly would have had it taken away from them, and they would have deserved it. Well, Japan's current run of spacecraft failures -- not even counting their recent booster failures -- goes beyond that point.

[maycm]

Distance to target -

August 1st : 63,808km
August 11th : 34,058km

[djellison]

Wow - I wonder if they'll use the ion engine all the way up to arrival - or if they'll coast in and then come to a near standstill with thrusters.

At this rate - they'll be there in another 10 days

Doug

[dilo]

So close... Any asteroid image???????

[deglr6328]

I'm confused, this is non US so is that really a comma or a decimal....?

[djellison]

No - it's really <10% of the earth-moon distance.

Doug

[Guest_Myran_*]

deglr6328 asked; I'm confused, this is non US so is that really a comma or a decimal....?

Comma is used in many countries for "decimal point", including mine.

So August 11 distance is 34 058 km and not 34 km 58 m.

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

A new piece on the Astro-E2 failure (and it IS a failure -- it ruins the central scientific purpose of the mission, and NASA is considering yanking its grants to help continue the mission):

http://www.space.com/astronotes/astronotes.html (August 11 entry).

It turns out that this was not exactly unexpected -- the helium coolant system had been showing a whole series of "mysterious" but serious malfunctions since July 29, and finally simply ran out of helium. (The Japanese space agency didn't utter a word about any of this until the final, irreversible failure.) Moreover, it does seem likely that the satellite, like so many other Japanese space failures, was simply underfunded -- its development cost was only $150 million, for a quite sophisticated astronomy satellite. Shades of Dan Goldin!

Now it will be at least another five years before the X-ray Calorimeter Spectrometer -- originally intended to be a very important part of the Chandra Observatory -- can get a third chance to fly. One hopes that Hayabusa will do better, but -- given the solar power problem which it's already developed -- I'm not counting on it.

[dilo]

About Hayabusa, there is an article here from Don Yeomans...

[Phil Stooke]

I don't know anything about the Hayabusa optics, but working with the Voyager camera rule-of-thumb that 100 000 km range gave 1 km per pixel, the 35 000 km range to Itokawa at the moment would give us about 300 m/pixel resolution. In other words the asteroid would still be only 1 to 2 pixels across. Presumably they are taking navigation images now. But fairly soon we might see an image with the shape roughly resolved...

Phil

[Toma B]

FIRST IMAGES FROM HAYABUSA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hayabusa

[helvick]

Phil's estimate looks to have been bang on. Neat.

[dilo]

Wow, finally informations arrived! ...cannot wait for first Optical Navigation Camera (ONC) high resolution images!
I thing we should strongly congratulate with Jaxa (and NASA too) for this achievement, after all "bad things" and difficulties mentioned here...
Really hope that final approach will still smooth (apart reaction wheel issue).

[maycm]

Distance to target -

August 1st : 63,808km
August 11th : 34,058km

August 17th : 20,199km

[RNeuhaus]

I just discoverd it as an interesting project. By October 2005, hope that the space Hayabusa will land on the asteroid Itokawa located in a belt between of Mars and Jupiter. Hope that the Japanese electronic won't fail again. I speculate that the Itokawa land is covered of full of powder like the comet which was hit by a deep impact. Does the Hayabusa have a shovel or spade to pick up small stones to be brought back to Earth?

Rodolfo

[dilo]

"...asteroid Itokawa located in a belt between of Mars and Jupiter...."
Rodolfo, Itokawa is a Near Earth asteroid, in fact now both (asteroid and probe) lies only slightly outside Earth orbit...
For infos, take a look here:
Don Yeomans article
or here:
Planetary Society

[Bob Shaw]

Rodolfo:

They're gonna shoot at the poor thing and capture the debris in a horn pointing down to the surface, so their sampling system is probably as good as you'd get for dust.

Isn't it a bid sad that Earth has decided to declare war on the Asteroids? Still, I suppose this time the Americans shot first!

Bob Shaw

[tedstryk]

Given the lack of gravity on such a small world, I would be afraid their was no loose material, so I think this is a good way to get a sample.

[garybeau]

Given the lack of gravity on such a small world, I would be afraid their was no loose material, so I think this is a good way to get a sample.

Hmmm.... I had the opposite thought, I would think because of the very low gravity, not the lack of, there would be lots of extremely loose material.

If they fail to capture any material with the shoot and catch method, do you think they might attempt to get in closer?

[djellison]

Do they even have a way to check if they got any material?

[AndyG]

Do they even have a way to check if they got any material?

The collections will be made from about 30m of the surface, so it's likely there will be "some" grains of material blown off that will hit the collection funnel.

Is there anyway to measure the impact of this material on Hayabusa? That would ensure you know you've got something.

And I suppose given the mass of Hayabusa (~500kg) you could measure the difference in acceleration with or without a few grams of material added...though that would mean you'd need to accurately judge the amount of consumables (chemical and xenon) before and after the collection procedure.

The Jaxa website is awful for details, though. (Addendum: maybe it's just me, and the fault lies in the finding of those details...)

Andy G

[paxdan]

The collections will be made from about 30m of the surface, so it's likely there will be "some" grains of material blown off that will hit the collection funnel.

My understanding was that the contact of the collection tube with the asteroid would trigger the firing of the pellet. This NewScientist article has a bit more info, including mentioning that they aim to collect 100 milligrams of material and that the hopper will make 10 metre hops. I wonder if they will do imagery during the flight of the hops?

Doug, as for Don Yeomans, the US project scientist for the mission, perhaps you should invite him over to the board. From TFA: “This is a stealth mission, nobody knows it’s there.”

[paxdan]

More info about the sampling from the NSSDC Master Catalog.

Surface Sample Collection:
The lander will be equipped with a universal sample collection device which will gather roughly one gram of surface samples taken from the landings at 3 different locations. The device consists of a funnel-shaped collection horn, 40 cm in diameter at the end, which is to be placed over the sampling area. A pyrotechnic device fires a 10 gram metal projectile down the barrel of the horn at 200 - 300 m/sec. The projectile strikes the surface producing a small impact crater in the surface of the asteroid and propelling ejecta fragments back up the horn, where some of it is funnelled into a sample collection chamber. Prior to each sampling run, the spacecraft will drop a small target plate onto the surface from about 30 m altitude to use as a landmark to ensure the relative horizontal velocity between the spacecraft and asteroid surface is zero during the sampling. After sampling the samples will be stored in the re-entry capsule for return to Earth.

[djellison]

It's a bold mission design - you have to give them that

Doug

[tedstryk]

Even if the sampling/landing fails, If it provides global coverage at 1 meter resolution of a world this size, it will have provided some interesting data. It is strange to be 20,000 km out from an arrival and have the object being approached still be a mere speck!

[RNeuhaus]

"...asteroid Itokawa located in a belt between of Mars and Jupiter...." 
Rodolfo, Itokawa is a Near Earth asteroid, in fact now both (asteroid and probe) lies only slightly outside Earth orbit...
For infos, take a look here:
Don Yeomans article
or here:
Planetary Society

Dilo, Thank you for pointing this out. As Itokawa is an asteroide, then I tought it is located on that belt... It is a another surprise for me because any asteroide is not always located on that belt but also wandering in anywhere? I am starting to think that I have no good concept to differentiate between comets and asteroids. Now I am guessing that any comets are defined as ones which loops around sun with periapsis and apoapisis. Otherwise, the asteroids does not loops around the sun and they remains stable on their orbits? They can be in any distance from sun?

According to the picture, the probe has no long legs (a land must be very FLAT!!) to land on asteroid and it will touch down, with the propulsion ion engine will be turned off previously. This is to prevent the jets from contaminating the asteroid surface by coming too close to it. I am afraid that the probe might bounce back into the space...

"The other challange is when the next task -- collecting a sample -- may be an even greater challenge. The surface gravity of the asteroid is really small and is less than 1/100,000 of that of the Earth. Anything -- a drill or any other digging tool - that is not secured by a strong anchor into the surface may just be pushed away before the drill actually bores a hole." I would imagine that each legs must have own motor with screws in order to nail down the surface....

"Since we do not know what the asteroid is really made of, there is no way of knowing how hard the surface will be or how difficult this collection of surface dust will be. The Japanese are employing a simple, direct strategy -- to "break the surface" by using a tiny pyrotechnic device to fire 'sampler horns' into the three targeted sites on the asteroid." This is another risk or adventure. I don't know how it will hapen with its explosion wave (in space has no air and I seems that the explosion wave won't push to the probe?? ).

"Once the collections of surface dust are completed, the spacecraft will start the engine, lift off, and resume its hovering position at 100 meters altitude as it waits for the next order from Mission Control. Here does not say anything about the mechanism in order to make sure that the samples are already collected!!! The samples will no be greater than one gram for Earth gravity." As the most samples are in dust, I assume, one gram of dust is a enough for a facial makup.

Rodolfo

P.D. "Ithalic" are extracts from the Planetary Society

[paxdan]

It's a bold mission design - you have to give them that
Doug

indeed it is, they are cramming a host of tech into a very compact mission. The low mass of the target simplifies things somewhat making the sampling the result of a heliocentric orbital rendezvous as opposed to a landing involving the complexities of orbiting and/or descending around a larger mass.

But a sample and return from an asteroid as well, gotta hand it to them it will be quite a first!

Heck like tedstryk i'll be happy if they manage some decent imaging. I am really looking forward to seeing what this object looks like, the scale is almost human! So only a matter of weeks before a new world hoves into view.

rubbing hands in anticipation.

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

Abstract #4024 in the new "Dust In Planetary Systems" abstracts ( http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/dust2005/pdf/program.pdf ) confirms something hinted at in a recent Space.com article: because of the delay in its arrival at asteroid Itokawa due to the weakening of its SEP drive by that big 2003 solar flare, Hayabusa will now sample only two sites on the asteroid -- instead of the originally planned three -- before departing for home.

[paxdan]

Hayabusa will now sample only two sites on the asteroid -- instead of the originally planned three -- before departing for home.

This question was asked earlier in the thread and i've looked but can't find an answer myself, but do we know if they have a means of detecting if the sampling has been successful?

[paxdan]

Well i've been doing some digging and found this website which has some more info and photos. On this webpage there are a couple of short movies, one showing a animation of the approach and sampling sequence, the other showing a test of the hopper mobility system.

I still don't see any sort of page set up to handle the raw image release. Bah.

[tedstryk]

Cool!

[Toma B]

Today:
Distance from Itokawa : 11,320km

Geting realy close now!!!

[Toma B]

Does anybody knows where can I find more Earth images from Hayabusa's flyby May18 2004???
I have find only one image taken from far away (295.000 km.)



Flyby's closest point was 3700 km.... That's allmost 80 times closer than on this image...

[MaG]

I found something!

http://www.jaxa.jp/missions/projects/sat/e...cknumber_e.html

and here bigger version http://www.planetary.org/news/2004/images/...yby_768x768.jpg

[paxdan]

Does anybody knows where can I find more Earth images from Hayabusa's flyby May18  2004???

OK so i've been looking again for a Hayabusa image release site and found this section of the jaxa website called the digital archive the search bars have drop down fields but frustratingly the 'mission' drop down field where you might expect hayabusa to get a mention is blank. I can't even find the image you posted above on this site.

Somewhere someone must have access to the raw images. I know hayabusa stuff is going to be archived by the PDS but doesn't this happen to processed stuff sometime after it is taken? Oh well back to fiddling with URLs.

Would it be rude to email Don Yeomans? I really do want to follow this 'live'.

[paxdan]

I found something!

http://www.jaxa.jp/missions/projects/sat/e...cknumber_e.html

and here bigger version http://www.planetary.org/news/2004/images/...yby_768x768.jpg

Yup and you can get to this page too, the two flash movies are quite good fun. Will someone on a windows box tell me what the .exe screensaver does.

[djellison]

Dont think much of their co-registering of the R,G,B's for that - it's a bit off

This is perhaps a smidge better
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/doug_images/hayb.jpg

Doug

[Bob Shaw]

Doug:

You can see my house from up there!

Bob Shaw

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[djellison]

I only noticed the bad registration because I was about to put a big "I AM HERE" arrow on it

Doug

[paxdan]

Doug:
You can see my house from up there!
Bob Shaw

ha ha yeah been thinking the same thing, sadly i think that band of cloud across the midlands covers my location though.

It is a very nice image. At least they have managed to bung up a camera that appears to be in focus and hasn't got covered in crap during the launch.

[Phil Stooke]

Here:

http://www.planetary.or.jp/en/column/index.html

is another Hayabusa article. More images expected at the end of the month.

Phil

[abalone]

band of cloud across the midlands.

Is this unusual?

[paxdan]

Is this unusual?

ha ha, not really.

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

New, very detailed Hayabusa article:
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0508/22hayabusa/

Right now it's 10,000 km out, and should get to the 20-km "gate position" in about three weeks.

[paxdan]

I only noticed the bad registration because I was about to put a big "I AM HERE" arrow on it
Doug

I take it you seperated the layers in photoshop and shifted them about rather than having access to the original raw images.

[djellison]

I take it you seperated the layers in photoshop and shifted them about rather than having access to the original raw images.

Yup -just moved the channels in photoshop

If I had the raw data - I'd be shouting about it

Doug

[paxdan]

8,880 km.........

[Decepticon]

As long as we get any pictures I'll be happy.

[paxdan]

As long as we get any pictures I'll be happy.

seconded...

[tedstryk]

seconded...

Thirded. I would like to see complete success. But this is an ambitious mission, especially for a space program that hasn't had any major success since its Halley spacecraft, which were very simple, relatively speaking.

[Guest_Myran_*]

Fourded!

[djellison]

Umm. Fithted? Sounds rude

Doug

[paxdan]

Umm. Fithted?  Sounds rude

Doug

hah ha ha ha snort...

This post has been edited by paxdan: Aug 24 2005, 02:26 PM

[Phil Stooke]

ISAS Hayabusa update...

http://www.isas.jaxa.jp/e/snews/2005/0826.shtml

Phil

[alan]

Looks like you can see its shadow in those images. Gives me the impression that it has a thin atmosphere like a weakly active comet. Probably just an imaging artifact though.

[Bob Shaw]

Looks like you can see its shadow in those images. Gives me the impression that it has a thin atmosphere like a weakly active comet. Probably just an imaging artifact though.

Alan:

The 'shadow' runs in the same direction as the herringbone noise pattern across the whole of the image, so I'd say it's in the camera!

Bob Shaw

[RNeuhaus]

New updates
The orbit maneuver of HAYABUSA spacecraft was handed over from the ion engines to the bi-propellant thrusters on August 28 JST.
After the solar conjunction the microwave discharge ion engines were turned on again at the end of July and accelerated with their full throttling so as to approach to the target.
At the end of August HAYABUSA stays 4,800km (3,000 miles) apart from Asteroid ITOKAWA and is still closing it at 32km/h (20 milles/h) velocity with the ion engines off.

Calculating the time required to reach Itokawa = 4,800 km/32 km/h = 150 hours (6 days and 6 hours) and the space will be stopped at 20 km before of Itokawa. At this distance, the potato's shape image will be pretty tasty

Rodolfo

[djellison]

Less than a week until it gets to the asteroid then - at which point I assume they'll match speed using bi-prop thrusters.

Doug

[Toma B]

Distance from Itokawa 3220 km... and closing in...
I just can't wait...

[antoniseb]

I just can't wait...

I can't either, but so far I haven't seen a lot of details on the English language site for this probe. I hope that they manage to make the images and data from this probe available using the Mars MER model as opposed to the ESA Huygens model, or worse yet the NASA WMAP model.

[deglr6328]

What was wrong with the Wilkinson probe? They needed to take data for the whole 2 year (?) mission before it could be assembled cleaned and presented visually....

[djellison]

Yeah WMAP was one of those missions that isnt a 'pretty' mission -it's just data coming down, takes a while to assemble it into anything visual.

Doug

[Guest_Myran_*]

I can't either, but so far I haven't seen a lot of details on the English language site for this probe. I hope that they manage to make the images and data from this probe available using the Mars MER model as opposed to the ESA Huygens model, or worse yet the NASA WMAP model.

Lets see whats wrong with Huygens, we had 3 decent images within an hour of the signal reaching Earth, and all images from the decent plus some data from the decent publicly available in two days.
Now tell me whats wrong with that?