[X] My Assistant

[odave]

EGD is right - it's a bad idea to split up "What's Up" thread.

Here's the Return Thread I started...

[Ishigame]

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.

Phil

I guess that is 'Yatsugatake' what prof. Matogawa called.
It is named after steep mountains in Japan.

http://smatsu.air-nifty.com/lbyd/2005/11/8...1.html#comments
（this is a comment about 2nd attempt, but Hayabusa landed same area as before.)

If it drifts as far as 60 meters away from planned landing area, it enters the rocky area where we unofficially call "Yatsugatake".

[RNeuhaus]

About the trouble of one of the thrusters, I am trying to determine the probable cause of this problem. One of the causes might be related with the first landing which Falcon had posed on the surface.

As it has no support legs but their four thrusters on its 4 corners. However, the horn is considered as the main leg support and one of the thrusters which is most probable have already touched on the surface is ones which is in the diagonal of horn.

I don't know which thrusters is having trouble.

On the other hand, during the second landing mission, the four below (facing to the surface) thrusters apparentely worked fine but after the 1st landing one of them might have weakened and worn out sooner than the others.

It is just a speculation. Hope that the 2 Ion Engine plus the others 7 thrusters still work fine and having the troubled well shut up (no fuel leakage) on all the way toward home later than June 2007.

Rodolfo

[nop]

About the trouble of one of the thrusters, I am trying to determine the probable cause of this problem. One of the causes might be related with the first landing which Falcon had posed on the surface.

As it has no support legs but their four thrusters on its 4 corners. However, the horn is considered as the main leg support and one of the thrusters which is most probable have already touched on the surface is ones which is in the diagonal of horn.

I don't know which thrusters is having trouble.

On the other hand, during the second landing mission, the four below (facing to the surface) thrusters apparentely worked fine but after the 1st landing one of them might have weakened and worn out sooner than the others.

It is just a speculation. Hope that the 2 Ion Engine plus the others 7 thrusters still work fine and having the troubled well shut up  (no fuel leakage) on all the way toward home later than June 2007.

New articles about thruster troubles were posted on Matsuura blog and JAXA website.
(some translated articles are available in the comment sections)

Both A and B systems seem to having trouble. They think it might be due to the obstruction or freezing, but yet it seems quite strange

[edstrick]

The problem may (purely guesswork here) be related to heating of the spacecraft by the surface of Itokawa, though it should have more likely showed up a week earlier. Ghods, I hope they get the sample back!

[nop]

If your friends are working in NASA/JPL, please show them this message:
"Hayabusa needs help"
http://5thstar.air-nifty.com/blog/2005/11/...usa_needs_.html

We need to make use of NASA 70m parabola for recovery of Hayabusa.
Though we understand this is a selfish request, we can't help asking for your support.

[centsworth_II]

Come on NASA! Lets get back some of the seat-of-the-pants glory of the days of Apollo 13 and help save this probe! At least no human lives are at stake.

"seat-of-the-pants". I wonder how that translates into Japanese.

[ljk4-1]

If your friends are working in NASA/JPL, please show them this message:
"Hayabusa needs help"
http://5thstar.air-nifty.com/blog/2005/11/...usa_needs_.html

We need to make use of NASA 70m parabola for recovery of Hayabusa.
Though we understand this is a selfish request, we can't help asking for your support.

I do not mean this to sound rude, but aren't there more direct communications channels between the Japanese and US space programs, rather than hoping that someone on an Internet board will send the message through?

Any chance Haybusa was programmed to automatically return to Earth after a certain point if it did not receive commands from home, just as the Voyagers probes were designed to carry out a preprogammed mission to the planets in the event they could not contact Earth.

Or am I just being nieve about all this?

In any event, I certainly do hope that NASA will do the right thing for science, to say nothing of international relations, and help get Haybusa home with its priceless cargo.

[odave]

Also not to be rude, but could we please move the ongoing Hayabusa discussion over here?

This thread has a lot of inertia

[ElkGroveDan]

Also not to be rude, but could we please move the ongoing Hayabusa discussion over here?

This thread has a lot of inertia

Alright everyone, odave is gone to the other thread. We can talk about him now.

[dvandorn]

Alright everyone, odave is gone to the other thread.  We can talk about him now.

That sounds fair -- since, over on the other thread, we're all talking about you...



-the other Doug

[odave]

Aw, c'mon guys, I get enough of this kind of stuff from my kids!

Oh, wait, wrong thread

[Toma B]

Interesting image from new JAXA update...

Update from JAXA
I guess these are photos from last (successful) landing attempt on Itokawa...of course it's the worst posible resolution that they can achive...
Does somebody know where can I find this sequence of images in better resolution?

[tedstryk]

Interesting image from new JAXA update...

Update from JAXA
I guess these are photos from last (successful) landing attempt on Itokawa...of course it's the worst posible resolution that they can achive...    
Does somebody know where can I find this sequence of images in better resolution?

Here is a somewhat larger version (lifted from the pdf)

[JRehling]

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").

Who knows how often our culture chooses phrases that have an unintended association in Japanese culture. Or Chinese. Or a little deeper in a European culture. Or Arab... You'd need a team of lit. PhDs. Which is not to say the notion isn't a nice one, but the execution is impossible. All of which is a roundabout way to say I wouldn't look at this and say that the professor or his translator should have taken some other course of action.

Also, the association is not quite that strong. A Google search on the phrase turns up in the top ten several uses of the phrase NOT indicating D Day. Simply put, "longest" and "day" are two of the most common words in English, and it's not that unlikely to see them together for original purposes.