[X] My Assistant

[Kno]

Since it is their last attempt, they could perhaps shoot both remaining projectiles, with a little time gap between each shot, to increase the volume of regolith collected?

Rakhir

"At 7:35 AM, we confirmed two bullets (projectiles) were fired."

"To increase the amount of the sample collection, the bullet is launched by two every 0.2 seconds."

Rakhir, it seems that your suggestion was realized.

[Kei-ichiro Sakur...]

This is partially human-translated in the comments section. They didn't drop another target marker and didn't even use the one from the first attempt.

Just a small correction:
They says that they 'basically' did not rely on the marker this time.
It can mean that Hayabusa have still somehow 'used' the marker as a 'recognizable part of the landscape', I assume.

Also, as we know, it did inform the operators how accurately Hayabusa had been controlled at that moment. I think it was one of the critical information, as they already knew that they were only a couple of 10 meters away from a deadly-large rocky area.

Finally, in any case, as it was confirmed by Kawaguchi's own words, the 880 thousand names did help to lead Hayabusa -- great cheers for all those people from 149 countries

[helvick]

You folks now noticed that in Japanese a squirrel is called "lith" ;-)

Post impact "regolith" model
All joking about machine translations aside, this is a fantastic achievement by JAXA both from a technical\scientific\engineering and from a PR perspective. Everyone involved (including the bloggers and folks translating for us here) should be proud.

[RNeuhaus]

Yes, JAXA people also seems to have such hope.  In JAXA webpage, Prof. Fujiwara says in his personal opnion:
"Asteroids are classified by their reflection spectrum.  Among various types, the S-type and the C-type are the most popular.  Itokawa is a S-type asteroid. So I hope to plan a series of missions, for example, to go to S-type asteroids next. "

It would be great to send Hayabusa-B after learning all things and improved the design after all mishaps that have occured from the mission to Itokawa so the next generation of Hayabusa-X would be much easier, cheaper and securer.

Rodolfo

[Guest_Myran_*]

Kei-ichiro Sakurai said: the 880 thousand names did help to lead Hayabusa -- great cheers for all those people from 149 countrie

I concur, and cheer for the JAXA team also.
One milestone passed, but theres still one more to overcome, to bring the samples home.

[ElkGroveDan]

I think some of those are empties

Well that's the point of the whole running gag. They are ALL empties.

[elakdawalla]

Hi all, I am thankful to all of you for following this so closely, because I couldn't (was cooking for 13 family members yesterday)...

I just saw this on AP -- does anybody have any insight into this? Is it old news or new news?

Japanese Space Probe May Be in Trouble
By HANS GREIMEL, Associated Press Writer

TOKYO - A Japanese spacecraft showed signs of trouble Saturday after apparently landing on an asteroid and collecting surface samples in an unprecedented mission to bring the extraterrestrial material back to Earth, officials said.

The Hayabusa probe, hovering about three miles from the asteroid, appeared to be shaking due to a possible gas leak from a thruster, said Atsushi Akoh, a spokesman for Japan's space agency, JAXA.

JAXA will put Hayabusa into "safety mode" — which stabilizes the probe by turning its solar panels toward the sun — for two to three days to investigate, Akoh said.

Communications between the probe and the control center near Tokyo were stable, he said.

...

[odave]

I think it's just the same news from Matsuura's Blog

Shortly before 11:00 AM, a trouble, possible leakage, was detected in the thruster system.
Actually we were seeing the sign of this problem during the descent phase, but at that time we switched to the backup system and continued the descent.
When we switched to the main system from the backup system and started the thruster operation, the same problem occured. Due to the attitude change, the probe automatically switched to the safe mode. After that, we controlled the valve to stop the leakage.

We'll use the next three days to get it out of the safe mode. Getting out of the safe mode will be our first priority. After that we'll start downloading of the data.

The amount of leakage of propellant does not seem to hinder the current operation. But it definitely raised the bar of making Hayabusa back to Earth.

They're being rather guarded about the fuel situation, just saying that return and re-entry will be more challenging.

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

Thruster leakage was what also ruined Nozomi.

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

Why in the world did they switch back from the backup system to the main system when they already knew they had a leak? Is it just that they knew that switching to the backup system for active control wouldn't stop the leak in the main system, or were they planning to command the thruster off as soon as they switched back to the main system (in which case the transition to safe mode seems to have delayed them)?

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

Another suggestion: since it's clear that really precise navigation is important now to minimize the amount of fuel they have to expend on maneuvers, the time may well have come for NASA's DSN to start pitching in seriously to provide the most precise radio tracking data possible for Hayabusa on the way home.

[mars loon]

What was the fuel margin remaining for earth return before the landing ?

Sounds like it will be a few days before determining what actually remains.

Still a remarkable success. Hopefully JAXA will build a few more Hayabusa spacecraft as mentioned in several earlier posts, and with some prudent modifications for lessons learned

[Kei-ichiro Sakur...]

Thruster leakage was what also ruined Nozomi.

From what I know, Nozomi's critical troubles were
* A valve failure that happened during earth swingby
(which forced Nozomi's jorney to be unexpectedly long)
* Short-circuit in the heater power circuit
(which kept the main 500N-thruster's fuel frozen forever)

Source:
Shinnya Matsuura, 'Osorubeki Tabiji' (ISBN 4-257-03700-8). Asahi Sonorama, May 2005, P.182
This book also contains moving stories about Nozomi, but
unfortunately this is only available in Japanese...

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

The second problem -- the shorted-out heater -- only occurred because of Nozomi's exposure to a powerful solar flare, which in turn only happened because that leaky valve forced its trip to Mars to be prolonged by years. So Nozomi's failure was really all caused by that valve. It will be a great pity if exactly the same cause now ruins Hayabusa.

[Comga]

Since this (now old) image set from a JAXA site in Japanere doesn't seem to be linked, (although I could have missed this one, too) thought it would be helpful to do so here. A Google translation has been added and my own version appended to the end.

The site is http://www.isas.jaxa.jp/j/snews/2005/1125.shtml

Google Translation

The signature entering target marker 88 ten thousand, clear (the up-to-date picture) probe " quickly ぶ ", November 20th morning o'clock of 5 the target marker (signature to enter) it separated in 30 minutes. After the separated approximately 3 minutes (near high-level over 30 meters), " it is quick the ぶ ", with the wide angular camera of loading, the target marker which is dropped to the I To matte image pickup was done. With the enlargement picture, the target marker receiving the sunlight, it is recognized that it has shone. Those where the light like muscle in vertical direction of the picture occurs are the phenomenon, smear. Because the shutter is not attached to the wide angular camera, the occasion where the electric charge to which the CCD light absorbent element converts light is transferred to memory, because it can add to original electric charge bright light, it happens. Those where removal processing of this smear is done are the smear revision picture. The round target marker has been taken clearly. In addition probe " it is quick ぶ ", on side of the shadow, it could find the shadow of the target marker. It is the instantaneous picture to which the target marker is separated is opposite to the I To matte surface safely.

My interpretation:

The target marker with 880,000 signatures cleared the Hayabusa probe November 20th at 5'Oclock in the morning. Approximately 3 minutes after separation, at approximately 30 meters. this image was taken with the wide angle camera, as the target marker is dropping to the surface of Itokawa. In the enlargement, the target marker is seen to be illuminated by the sun, and is shining. The vertical streaks on both sides of the target marker image are due to a phenomenon called "smear". Because there is no mechanical shutter in the wide angle camera, the photosensitive elements continue to accumulate signal as the image is read out to memory. This smear is mostly removed in the corrected image. The round target marker is seen clearly. In addtion, to the side of the shadow of Hayabusa, you can see the shadow of the target marker. This shows that the target marker was released safely towards the surface of Itakowa.

PS: I have been told that the lables on the two red arrows say "target marker" and "target marker shadow"

Attached thumbnail(s)