[X] My Assistant

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

It is an odd twist. Don Yeomans said flatly at the COMPLEX meeting that there are indeed three markers, with the first to be ejected during the rehearsal landing (shortly before Minerva was ejected during the rehearsal). And where they're going to land for the second sample, now that the Woomera Desert has been rejected, is also a puzzle. (It's believed that Hayabusa's landing system has a horizontal accuracy of + 30 meters, so landing spots 60 meters wide must be found that have no rocks protruding more than 0.5 meter out of the surface. )

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

Plowing through that translation, the only remaining puzzle to me is why they decided to test the camera's ability to track the target marker WITHOUT sighting it against the surface of the asteroid itself. Apparently, given the trouble the software had identifying a single bright center in its photos of that rough terrain (something also noted at the start of this new press release), they decided that those two aspects of the new software must now be tested separately.

As for the rest: Hayabusa descended to within 70 meters of the surface, then withdrew over the next 2 hours back to 3 km from the asteroid, then over the next hour dropped again to within 500 meters of it. During one of these two close encounters, its photos confirmed that Woomera is too rough to land on; during the other one it confirmed that -- while the Muses Sea does have some boulders -- it's the only place on the asteroid smooth enough to safely land, and will thus be the site for both sampling landings. (That's if both sampling landings actually are done -- during one of them, the Muses Sea is on the opposite side of Itokawa from Earth at the time when the spacecraft is within range of Japan's tracking station, so negotiations are underway with NASA for the DSN to provide communications with it during that landing. If this doesn't work out, or time runs out, the second sampling landing will be cancelled. The craft, by the way, contains two chambers to store samples.)

As for that red-light district on Itokawa: is that really so surprising in a world where NASA considers sending a wench to Mars just to pull Opportunity out of the sand? (And while we're on the subject of ghastly translations, Pepsi-Cola's first attempt to use its slogan "Come alive with Pepsi" in Taiwan resulted in millions of baffled Taiwanese learning that "Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave." Nor should we forget President Carter's immortal speech in Poland, in which he informed the Polish people that he was "pleased to be grasping your private parts.")

[Harry]

(And while we're on the subject of ghastly translations, Pepsi-Cola's first attempt to use its slogan "Come alive with Pepsi" in Taiwan resulted in millions of baffled Taiwanese learning that "Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave."  Nor should we forget President Carter's immortal speech in Poland, in which he informed the Polish people that he was "pleased to be grasping your private parts.")

Stereoscopic image of ITOKAWA synthesized by Stereographer (view: parallel eyes)

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[Bob Shaw]

I'm intrigued by the fate of the recently-released 'practice minus one' (if I may refer to it that way!) marker. I presume that it was ejected from Hayabusa by springs, which would impart some kick on both the marker and the spacecraft.

Any thoughts about the eventual location of the marker? Co-orbital with the asteroid, in orbit, or landed? I'd hate to think it's got any possibillity of bumping into the spacecraft next time it descends...

Bob Shaw

[The Messenger]

Given that an abort command was issued well before closest appoach, and the probe still managed to descend to 70m(!?); it is reasonable to speculate Itokawa is more massive than they expected.

Does anyone know how the mass was calculated for Itokowa before Hayabusa?

It well be interesting to compare the mass determined by Hayabusa with the priors.

[Jeff7]

As for that red-light district on Itokawa: is that really so surprising in a world where NASA considers sending a wench to Mars just to pull Opportunity out of the sand?

Well now that's certainly sexist and derogatory.



I wonder how many mistranslations we get because of simple spelling mistakes like that in other languages? All your wench are belong to us.

[odave]

I wonder how many mistranslations we get because of simple spelling mistakes like that in other languages?

And there's also word choice in the translation. I remember being offered a bottle of Pocari Sweat when I was in Japan several years ago. I immediately wondered just what a "Pocari" was, and should I really be drinking its sweat? It turns out that the drink is functionally equivalent to Gatorade - i.e. something you drink when you sweat

ob Hayabusa: There's a brief update on the JAXA main page, but it doesn't have anything on it that we haven't already figured out.

That shadow picture certainly is cool, with Hayabusa looking suspiciously like a TIE fighter. Now all we need is that Mimas image in the background...

[RNeuhaus]

The language translator software like ones from Google and Babelfish does not always translate right the language so some sentences or words must be corrected manually by a proficient bilingual person.

Rodolfo

[lyford]

That shadow picture certainly is cool, with Hayabusa looking suspiciously like a TIE fighter.  Now all we need is that Mimas image in the background...

It all makes sense now! After all, we know where Darth Vader got his costume....

[odave]

...and a deep, dark Star Wars geek memory just surfaced: The TIE in TIE fighter stands for Twin Ion Engine

[djellison]

Hayabusa is a TIE, but it's Tri, not Twin

Doug

[Phil Stooke]

OK, quit your wenching, you lot - it's starting:


from http://www.isas.jaxa.jp/home/hayabusa-live/



"Now we are starting Hayabusa blog.
We started descending at 3:00 am (JST). The altitude at the start of descent is approximately 1.4 km (from the center of Itokawa)."

[Bob Shaw]

It strikes me that a lot of the Hayabusa images which feature the edge of the asteroid coiuld be manipulated in PhotoShop (etc) to provide pseudo-lander images using a variety of transforms...

Bob Shaw

[Bob Shaw]

Anybody hear anything about MINERVA? It was reported to have been released...

Bob Shaw

[imran]

Anybody hear anything about MINERVA? It was reported to have been released...

Bob Shaw

Any live webcasts out there?