[extropy-chat] Hayabusa aborts lander on asteroid Itokawa

[Amara Graps]

http://planetary.org/news/2005/1104_Hayabusa_Japans_Asteroid_Mission.html

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Hayabusa -- the world's first
mission to attempt to land on an asteroid, collect samples, and return
them to Earth - did not carry out the planned release of its lander
Friday or the final part of its rehearsal for two brief landings
scheduled for later this month. Around noon Japan Standard Time (JST) [7
p.m., November 3 Pacific Standard Time (PST)], mission controllers, who
had detected "an anomalous signal" at the critical Go/NoGo timepoint,
aborted both the release of the target marker and Minerva, the lander.
There was no immediate word on when this part of the mission would be
rescheduled.


The $170-million-dollar asteroid chaser was to have descended to just
about 30 meters (100 feet) above the asteroid to test a laser range
finder and other instruments for the two landings scheduled for later
this month and then move in closer to about 15 meters (50 feet) to
release a target marker and Minerva - short for MIcro/Nano Experimental
Robot Vehicle for Asteroid.

Hayabusa, which means "falcon" in Japanese, began its descent around 4
a.m., JST on November 4 [11 a.m., November 3 PST] and by 8:45 a.m., it
was within 1,700 meters (about 1 mile) of the surface. It was proceeding
"smoothly" according to the live feed from JAXA's website, and two hours
later, at 10:50 a.m. JST, it was just 1 kilometer (a little more than
half a mile) from Itokawa. But that is apparently as close as it got
before the anomalous signal brought the activities to a halt.

Developed at the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS), a
space science research division arm of JAXA, Hayabusa  launched from
Japan's Kagoshima Space Center on May 9, 2003. It overcame a number of
obstacles during its 1 billion kilometer (621 million mile) journey,
including several life-threatening solar flares. That slowed its arrival
a bit, but the spacecraft finally arrived at Itokawa in September of
this year.

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Amara Graps, PhD          email: amara at amara.com
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