[X] My Assistant

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

When you run the most recent blog entries at http://smatsu.air-nifty.com/lbyd/cat679792/index.html through BabelFish, while you encounter a huge amount of downright hallucinogenic mistranslated prose, you also run across a few interesting things that are understandable:

(1) It seems from the most recent entry on Nov. 17 that the landing site and time for today's sampling attempt may have been changed, although the details aren't clear.

(2) That extremely detailed photo shown above was taken from only 55 meters altitude -- the best photo of an asteroid's surface we've received yet.

(3) The reaction wheels on Hayabusa, two of which have failed, were, if I understand correctly, made by an AMERICAN manufacturer -- none other than Goodrich -- and JAXA is trying to pin the blame for the failure entirely on them.

(4) JAXA got tremendous heat from Japanese reporters at the press conference on Minerva's failure, and resorted to everything up to and including drawing an analogy with Magellan's death during his voyage. Apparently Minerva was released about 4 minutes after Hayabusa had begun rising again, although I'm not sure I understand this correctly.

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

Correction: from trying to decode that latest JAXA update itself with BabelFish, it seems that the photo may have been taken from 65-70 meters altitude rather than 55 meters (which was the minimum altitude Hayabusa reached above Itokawa). There also seems to be speculation by the science team that seismic shaking may actually have tossed all regolith particles finer than 1 millimeter completely away from the asteroid, leaving behind only coarser material -- but, as with so much, I'm not sure I'm interpreting this correctly.

[The Messenger]

...The reaction wheels on Hayabusa, two of which have failed, were, if I understand correctly, made by an AMERICAN manufacturer -- none other than Goodrich -- and JAXA is trying to pin the blame for the failure entirely on them.

IAOTO there is an unrecognized failure mode for inductive circuitry outside of the ionosphere. This happens too often...Does anyone know if and how they solved the jittery problems with Cassini's instruments?

From F0e's reference: (thanks!)

We now really begin to understand this operation is far more difficult than landing on “the moving Grand Canyon” by jumbo jet. As the surface conditions being revealed more and more clearly, it seems to be more and more difficult to prove it is nothing but “pinpoint landing” not even the US has done before.

A better analogy would be landing a large, robotically controlled model helecopter in a stone quarry. If they can't hit the broad side of an asteroid with a bean bag from 80m, the prospects for a successful pinch and run are not good. Anybody know if Vegas is running odds?

[RNeuhaus]

Check below!
You will understand what happened.

http://www.planetary.or.jp/en/column/
Prof.Matogawa is  the last pupil of Itokawa.
And he is spokesman of ISAS  in practice.

http://www.jaxa.jp/news_topics/column/special/index_e.html

Welcome Foe to this forum. We are very interesting to be well acquinted about the Hayabusa's progress and we are very glad to have someone from Japan to help us to translate well from Japanese to English language.

Rodolfo

[dvandorn]

I think this is one of the more telling quotes from the Planetary Society article:

"Hayabusa team is firmly determined to have their job done well to make us trustful of them, but rather because of this the possibility might be high for them not to move into sampling on 19th but try to obtain more information on landing technique to make the landing assurance double sure."

I'm sure this illustrates a big cultural gap between the Western world and Japan, but this says two things to me: 1) The Hayabusa team is far more overtly concerned with "saving face" in the event of a failure than their Western counterparts would be, and 2) because of this, they're extremely hesitant to actually execute the planned maneuvers because of the inherent risk of failure in the way the mission was designed.

If Apollo had been run like this, we *might* have seen a manned landing by Apollo 15, with all previous attempts called off prior to PDI because "we want to make sure the American people trust us to take this risk."

I know it's a cultural thing -- but if you plan a mission that has a number of risky unknowns, you judge the risks as best you can and then you execute the mission plan. As it stands, it "feels" like the Hayabusa team is so worried about the personal dishonor that failure could bring that they're making mistakes by being over-cautious. They're second-guessing themselves, and in doing so they've lost Minerva and one of the target markers. Much more of this and they're likely to lose Hayabusa itself.

-the other Doug

[odave]

Nice avatar, too, Foe

[chris]

I think this is one of the more telling quotes from the Planetary Society article:

"Hayabusa team is firmly determined to have their job done well to make us trustful of them, but rather because of this the possibility might be high for them not to move into sampling on 19th but try to obtain more information on landing technique to make the landing assurance double sure."

You may well be right Doug, but I feel that your interpretation smacks a little to much of a cultural stereotype. The translation makes it very hard to interpret subtler meanings.

It could be them saying:

"We know you think we haven't done too well so far - we understand why. Its been harder than we expected, and as a consequence we won't go ahead with the sampling on the 19th unless we are very sure we have got it right".

Just a thought

Chris

[dvandorn]

Yes, I freely admit the message they're sending may not fall on American ears the way the Japanese would understand it -- it may well be a cultural thing.

But the fact remains that the Hayabusa team is acting extremely hesitant in executing the mission plan, without giving any real details as to exactly *why* they are being so cautious.

I think the more important point is that there is really no detailed discussion out there as to why the Hayabusa team is being so cautious. The USA had the same issue with Viking 1 -- they delayed its landing for two weeks because the original landing site appeared too rough, and they needed to find and validate a new landing site. But the Viking team was very forthcoming with the reasons why the landing was delayed (which was a rather big PR thing, since the original landing was scheduled for America's Independence Day, July 4, and its delay meant a loss of public relations "points" for the Viking team).

All we're being told here is "gee, it's harder than we thought." With no real information as to *why and how* it's more difficult than they thought. And if they won't discuss *why* it's harder than they thought, they invite questions of confidence and competence... at least, in America, they do. In America, if all you say is "gee, this will take us a lot more time and money than we originally thought" without detailing why, people will generally assume that you either weren't competent to do the job in the first place, or else that you've screwed up somehow and don't want anyone to find out exactly how.

-the other Doug

[odave]

I'm sure the level of cautiousness to employ vs time is a tough call, especially when you're responsible for multi-million dollar equipment. Look at how much time the MER team spent making sure Spirit was stable enough for IDD work on Hillary (SS update, 10/16/05). And they have almost two Earth years of confidence built up. I can understand why the Hayabusa/JAXA people are a little gun-shy.

As I understand it, there will be just one sample run. At this point, taking a little more time to refine the details and build confidence is probably OK.

But they have to leave Itokawa in December, and, as dvandorn notes, there comes a time when you need to $#!t or get off the pot


[Edit: reword for more clarity]

[The Messenger]

"We know you think we haven't done too well so far - we understand why. Its been harder than we expected, and as a consequence we won't go ahead with the sampling on the 19th unless we are very sure we have got it right".

Just a thought

Chris

After reading the rest of the Planetary Society article, I tend to agree with Chris. Because of the rough terrain, the computer cannot process surface information well enough to control the mission. So they are doing it from the Earth, with gas jets rather than reaction wheels, that invariably over shoot. So a better analogy would be landing a helecopter in a coal mine.

It is extremely risky - if Armstrong had found himself in a boulder field, with a fifteen minute delay between control commands and execution, there would not have been an Apollo landing.

(Score one for Human Spaceflight - and image processing

[ljk4-1]

I think the more important point is that there is really no detailed discussion out there as to why the Hayabusa team is being so cautious.  The USA had the same issue with Viking 1 -- they delayed its landing for two weeks because the original landing site appeared too rough, and they needed to find and validate a new landing site.  But the Viking team was very forthcoming with the reasons why the landing was delayed (which was a rather big PR thing, since the original landing was scheduled for America's Independence Day, July 4, and its delay meant a loss of public relations "points" for the Viking team).

-the other Doug

I am actually glad that Viking 1 did not land on Mars on July 4, 1976, which was the United States Bicentennial. As I well recall, a *lot* of things were going on that day in the Good Ol' USA, and while landing a probe on the Red Planet would have been icing on the cake, as it were, it probably would have been lost to the public among all the other celebrations and activities.

Landing on July 20 had a far greater significance in terms of space history, to say nothing of the fact that the Viking team's caution probably saved Mars from having one more bit of inert wreckage from Earth on its surface. And let's be honest, who really cares now exactly when Viking 1 landed almost three decades ago? What matters is that it did land and it did work.

Besides, Viking did its part for the Bicentennial with that star symbol attached to it - the same one that adorned the VBA at KSC until just a few years ago.

[ElkGroveDan]

In America, if all you say is "gee, this will take us a lot more time and money than we originally thought" without detailing why, people will generally assume that you either weren't competent to do the job in the first place, or else that you've screwed up somehow and don't want anyone to find out exactly how.

More likely there will be an assumption of a conspiracy and then the H0agland types come out of the woodwork

[dvandorn]

When it comes to space stuff, Dan, you're absolutely right. But for poorly-explained schedule and budget overruns on more mundane things, like for example a road construction project, people (at least Americans) are more likely to assume either incompetence or deliberate corruption than c0nspir@cies...

But when it comes to space, the loons really come out of the woodwork. There is something significant, sociologically, in how people become more and more desirous of c0nspir@cies as their world becomes more and more complex, and less and less easy to understand and predict.

-the other Doug

[mike]

Some people just really love c0nsp1r4c1es... there's not much you can do about it.

[RNeuhaus]

It is extremely risky - if Armstrong had found himself in a boulder field, with a fifteen minute delay between control commands and execution, there would not have been an Apollo landing.

(Score one for Human Spaceflight  - and image processing

Not just fifteen minutes but 16 minutes from Hayabusa to command center and another the same time to Hayabusa. a long delay, perhaps over than 32 minutes. This would work if the descending motion is constant and *WITHOUT ANY PLAN CHANGE UNTIL RELEASING THE MINERVA PROBE* so Hayabusa can go up or stir away from the low rotation motion of about 5cms/sec.

Rodolfo