[X] My Assistant

[mato]

Hayabusa the girl.
http://tardyion.hp.infoseek.co.jp/cgroom/c...es/calliope.jpg

Come back to the earth hastily.
Hurry up!

[Kei-ichiro Sakur...]

Yes -- I'm going to have to retract some of the nasty things I've said recently about the management of Japan's space program. Japan finally seems on the verge of getting a very badly needed major success in their long-suffering space program, and congratulations to them.  But my main fear is still that -- since they did it for only $150 million --  this may set off a trend back toward trying to fly seriously underfunded missions instead of recognizing that this success may have been an infrequent good-luck case.

I've looked into some of your old posts.
Though you say it 'nasty' by yourself, your indications are reasonable and interesting. Definitely, Japan's space programs are being driven with too small amount of resources. The benifits and risks of space are not reasonably evaluated.
I do not intend to accuse anybody, but this problem can be tracked down to the old times when Japan had severe trading problems with the States -- they sacrificied the whole space industry.
The Japanese government at that time have somewhat 'over-sacrificed' it; being not aware of the future importance of the space activities. The result is as you know now. We've lost our own weather satellite and had to borrow a backup from the States (we still don't have our own backup until the next launch); and is now also being a 'burden' in the ISS program, instead of providing some technical help when they're in difficulties.

Now I'm looking forward to a change for the better, which will be invoked by Hayabusa's achievements. It has already greatly influenced the attitude of the medias in Japan, now being more interested in the goods/bads of the space programs and trying to evaluate each facts more accurately... which I've been longing for years. We'll need opinions from overseas even more than now

[gonbe]

Professer MATOGAWA's The Longest Day of “HAYABUSA”


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

[maycm]

The crucial bits.......

The thruster trouble was solved by valve control signaled from ground........................

We will take about three days to get out of the safe mode as first priority, after which downloading of data will begin. If activation of pyrotechnic is verified by telemetry data to prove firing of bullets, and if the attitude of Hayabusa is proved vertical against the surface at the time of firing, the team will abort the next sampling and will command the spacecraft to take the flight back to the earth. Checking of fuels of its sufficiency is already finished. We are about to start challenging mountain climbing called “Asteroid Sample Return Mission” from the eighth post upward.

So they're going to check that both bullets really did fire and that Hayabusa was orientated correctly, and if so, abort any planned additional landing and head home.

[Joffan]

Professer MATOGAWA's  The Longest Day of “HAYABUSA”

An unfortunate choice - I think he (or his translator) should have chosen a different title. I'd rather be reminded of Japan's triumphs than their alliance with the Nazis. For those without the same cultural background, "The Longest Day" often refers to the Normandy Landings in World War II, especially since a book and a film of that name were produced, from a quote by Rommel ("der längste Tag").

And Hayabusa is definitely a triumph, which will be doubled if the samples make it back to Earth.

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

Tomorrow's issue of Aviation Week will include an article, "JAXA's Vision Exceeds its Budget" -- which sums up the central problem of the Japanese space program. I don't think it's unfairly detracting from Hayabusa's success for me to hope that it doesn't falsely encourage people to think that such underfunded missions really are the way to go, just because an occasional such mission is lucky enough to succeed.

[CosmicRocker]

Good point, Bruce.

On another note, I couldn't help but notice the statistics on this topic. Before this posting, this topic had 1055 replies and 111,082 views! I haven't done an exhaustive search through all of the topics in all of the subforums here, but this has got to be some kind of record, does it not?

[imran]

Good point, Bruce.

On another note, I couldn't help but notice the statistics on this topic.  Before this posting, this topic had 1055 replies and 111,082 views!  I haven't done an exhaustive search through all of the topics in all of the subforums here, but this has got to be some kind of record, does it not?

Amazing eh? And it's not over yet! This easily surpasses the Huygens landing (the Huygens news thread had 393 replies and 17733 views).

[volcanopele]

Amazing eh?  And it's not over yet!  This easily surpasses the Huygens landing (the Huygens news thread had 393 replies and 17733 views).

It doesn't hurt when this thread is kept open through the entire mission

Maybe it is time that a new thread is started and this one is split up into more manageable chunks?

[Ishigame]

An unfortunate choice - I think he (or his translator) should have chosen a different title.

I will tell them you wrote.

This title reminds almost all Japanese of an old favorite song called 'Oyaji no Ichiban Nagai Hi'(it means 'Father's Longest Day') by Masashi Sada.
It is a humorous song as a movie called 'Father of the Bride'.

[Rakhir]

Hayabusa is not the only Jaxa spacecraft currently struggling with reaction wheel problem.

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/japan-general-05n.html

Fortunately, Kirari was designed to deal with the loss of one reaction wheel.

Rakhir

[odave]

Maybe it is time that a new thread is started and this one is split up into more manageable chunks?

Yep - I think if you summed the replies and views of all the sub-threads in the Saturn and Mars fora you'd get better numbers for comparison. I'll go ahead and start a new thread for the Hayabusa's return.

Maybe an admin can retroactively split the "What's up" thread into discrete components - maybe one for the approach & arrival, the sampling tests, the sampling attempts, and one for LIPOVITAN-D!

[ElkGroveDan]

Maybe an admin can retroactively split the "What's up" thread into discrete components - maybe one for the approach & arrival, the sampling tests, the sampling attempts, and one for LIPOVITAN-D! 

This thread is already linked and bookmarked all over the place. We know the Japanese web sites have reported on it. Let's not lose any viewers. And you can't separate out the LIPOVITAN D it will ruin all the fun.

[Phil Stooke]

Can somebody track something down for me? I can't find it any more. About a week ago there was a story about - if I've got this right - the first attempt to touch down and sample, which included a statement by one of the Professors on the team. It said that the range sensors might have been confused by rough terrain in an area "which we call..." - and it gave a name for a rough area which I think must be the ridge within Muses Sea near the south pole. I forgot to record that name, unfortunately, but that's what I'm looking for. Trouble is, I don't know if it was from here, or one of the blogs, or any other source.

Phil

[Phil Stooke]

I agree with ElkGroveDan - start a new thread but don't break this one up.

Phil