posted 11-19-2005 03:16 PM            

The engineers looked pretty anxious and certainly no jubilation when I would have thought touchdown should have occurred?

posted 11-19-2005 03:37 PM               

An unconfirmed source -- another Japanese weblog -- has reported that Hayabusa has released the target marker and has started ascending again, and that it is not known whether it landed. Here's the Google translation of that weblog.

posted 11-19-2005 04:22 PM               

...it now appears that Earth has rotated far enough to take the Deep Space Network station at Goldstone, through which Hayabusa has been transmitting, out of line with Hayabusa. Now there is a gap in communication with the spacecraft until it can be acquired at Usuda, Japan.

posted 11-19-2005 05:02 PM               

Prof. Matogawa said, 'Operations cannot confirm the ascent. Beacon from Hayabusa continues. Hayabusa descended in autonomous mode. The laser range finder on Hayabusa indicated an altitude of 17 meters. After that, descent stopped, but Hayabusa did not begin ascending. At 07:00 JST, Operations sent to Hayabusa the command to ascend. Operations is making the effort to understand what happened.'

It discharged the target marker. After that, it descended autonomously to 17 meters. Then there was neither rising nor falling, it stopped in place. Altitude at this time is not known. Whether it was hovering or had laded is unclear. After that, Usuda transmitted to it to rise and to enter into safe mode. Rise is not verified to present time.

posted 11-20-2005 02:42 AM            

This is what JAXA saying this morning (GMT):

At 5:46 a.m. on the 20th (Japan Standard Time) JAXA received a signal from an asteroid explorer, Hayabusa, which stated descending toward an asteroid, Itokawa, in the night of the 19th for touching down (landing and sampling), that it had released the target marker. The altitude of the Hayabusa at that time was about 40 meters, thus we are almost certain that the target marker reached on the surface of the Itokawa.

A wild guess but I wonder if the plate release kicked up enough dust to 'fool' the altitude sensors into thinking that the surface had been reached? Maybe this happened with Minerva release as well?

We'll have wait until JAXA give a more detailed report of events so far. I wonder if they may retry - on the planned 2nd landing - if the probe is intact?

Whatever has happened there are many lessons here to be learned for asteroid landings in the future.

posted 11-21-2005 09:52 AM            

We made a first Touching Down (TD-1) attempt yesterday [Sunday].

Hayabusa released its 'Signature target Marker from 880,000 persons' at 40 m and successfully changed its attitude control to 'terrain alignment autonomous control using Laser Range Finder' at the altitude of just 17 m, below which Hayabusa itself stopped firing and started free fall descent to the surface. We were watching it via Doppler. But no touch-down occurred for surprisingly 30 minutes, during which the descent continued at very slow speed of about 2 cm/sec. We estimate Hayabusa drifted at very low altitude along the surface. Therefore, Hayabusa did not touch down the surface, but reached below 10 m altitude. In terms of the guidance and navigation as well as the 'Terrain Alignment Control', we think we achieved a big step.

We directed a command to Hayabusa to make an abort, since the sub-spacecraft point might have shifted so much from the intended area.

One concern was the surface temperature. The instruments temperature went high so much and we need to make sure if every instrument is still in order. This time, the guidance and navigation to the intended point was performed quite well with the residual speed of almost several mm/second.

Hayabusa fell into a Safe Mode at today's Touching-Down trial, due to some attitude anomaly very close to the altitude of about 10 m or so. The details are under investigation. The recovery operation has been performed successfully.

The project looks positively at the next opportunity, since almost every difficult step was now identified to function normally.

posted 11-23-2005 08:01 AM            

...Hayabusa is very far now from Itokawa and a bit concerned about whether actually it returns back to the starting position in time...

posted 11-23-2005 09:22 AM               

Associated Press: Japan's Hayabusa Spacecraft Lands Successfully on Asteroid

Japan's space agency said Wednesday its spacecraft had successfully touched down on an asteroid 180 million miles from Earth despite an earlier announcement that it had failed.

On Sunday, JAXA officials had said the Hayabusa probe, on a mission to land on the asteroid named Itokawa, collect material, then bring it back to Earth, failed to touch down after maneuvering within yards of the surface.

However, the agency said Wednesday that data confirmed that Hayabusa had landed on the surface Sunday for a half-hour, although it failed to collect material.

posted 11-25-2005 06:45 AM            

Several other spacecraft have, of course, bounced to a 'stop' on various planetary bodies during landing attempts including lunas, rangers, surveyors, Mars rovers, Veneras...

posted 11-25-2005 06:57 AM            

I understand they will run the Hayabusa Live Blog again.

posted 12-08-2005 09:52 AM               

A Japanese spacecraft is likely to have failed in its landmark mission to collect the first-ever samples from an asteroid and also faces trouble returning to Earth, the space program said Wednesday.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency had earlier said the Hayabusa probe "most probably" succeeded in gathering dust from the Itokawa asteroid, 290 million kilometers (180 million miles) from Earth, in late November.

"But now we found that the possibility is very high that a metal bullet to collect samples was actually not fired," said an official of the agency, which operates the probe.

posted 12-10-2005 01:17 PM            

However, they say Hayabusa is now leaving Itokawa. The spacecraft has already left Itokawa and as of December 6, the distance to Itokawa was about 550 km with the relative speed of about 5 km per hour.

The spacecraft was given a spin of about 1 degree per second.

On December 8, communication with the spacecraft was established via medium gain antenna at the bit rate of 256 bps.

At the moment they are very unsure whether soil was actually collected at Itokawa by Hayabusa since on December 6, a part of the data recorded by Hayabusa was reproduced and the pyro-controller data retrieved. It showed no "fire" evidence about the pyros for the projectile initiation. However, in turn, there was NO "no-fire" evidence, either!

At the same time, there was found an incorrectly positioned disarming command that may have been activated prior to the touching down. Pyros act with both arming and firing commands. The firing command was issued as reported before.

There was also glimpsed inconsistent phenomenon that may support the pyro initiation, such as the temperature increase.

However, detailed inspection of the sequence and command log is currently under way.

They also lost RCS fuel due to a leakage.

On November 26, after the completion of the correction canceling the ascent speed, the RCS thrusters were switched to the subsystem-B, but there was a leak from one thruster on the upper panel of the spacecraft belonging to subsystem-B. Shutting off the latching valves for both the two subsystems was commanded and it worked. But some acceleration due to the leak was observed.

Due to the leakage, orientation of the spacecraft was lost for a while and solar power dropped severely. Because of this, the onboard batteries were almost drained.

However, I understand orientation has been regained and, hopefully, power will be built up over a period of time?

posted 11-21-2009 12:24 AM               

Asteroid Explorer "HAYABUSA" Ion Engine Anomaly

On November 4, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency identified that one of the main ion engines (Thruster D) aboard the Asteroid Explorer "HAYABUSA" had autonomously stopped detecting a high neutralizer voltage owing to degradation. The HAYABUSA was during the second propulsion period in its return cruise back to the Earth in June 2010. Since the anomaly was identified, the project team has been trying to restart the engine while investigation of the causes; however, the engine has not been restarted yet as of today.

JAXA is currently under diagnostic investigation of the ion engines system aboard the HAYABUSA and trying to build an alternative sequence that helps the HAYABUSA return back to the Earth safely. JAXA will inform you of the update as soon as available.

Note: The HAYABUSA is equipped with four ion engines (Thrusters A through D,) and each thruster is in the following status. In the current plan, two thrusters, Thrusters C and D, would be used in the second propulsion period in return cruise back to the Earth.

• Thruster A: operation suspended due to instability just after the launch
  
• Thruster B: operation suspended due to high neutralizer voltage owing to degradation (since April 2007)
  
• Thrusters C and D: Both of them have indicated slight high neutralizer voltage owing also to degradation. Thruster C is currently not driven, but it is operable.

posted 11-21-2009 12:28 AM               

Restoration of Asteroid Explorer, HAYABUSA's Return Cruise

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has been studying measures to deal with the anomaly detected in one of the ion engines aboard the Asteroid Explorer "HAYABUSA" as reported on November 9, 2009. As a result, the project team has come up with a recovery operation plan, and the project decided to resume the operations, while carefully watching the status of the ion engines.

JAXA has been studying the characteristics of the neutralizers and the ion sources. During the study, enough thrust is found available for the rest of the cruise, when the neutralizer of the engine-A is combined with the ion source of the engine-B.

While the operation still needs monitored carefully, the project team has concluded the spacecraft can maintain the current return cruise schedule back to the earth around June of 2010, if the new engines configuration continues to work as planned.

The project team will attentively monitor the return cruise, and JAXA will inform you of any update whenever available.

posted 06-10-2010 08:48 AM               

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) would like to announce that Trajectory Correction Maneuver-4 (TCM-4) operation was successfully completed (15:00 June 9th, 2010 JST). By this operation, Hayabusa spacecraft was precisely guided to Woomera Prohibited Area (WPA) in Australia.

Hayabusa system is going well.

posted 06-10-2010 08:50 AM               

NASA Astronomers to Observe Hayabusa Homecoming

A group of astronomers from NASA, JAXA and other organizations are flying to the other side of the world for a front row seat and a rare opportunity to study a spacecraft's fiery descent through Earth's atmosphere.

A Douglas DC-8 airborne laboratory departed yesterday evening from NASA's Dryden Aircraft Operations Facility at Palmdale, Calif., carrying nearly 30 scientists and their instruments to Melbourne, Australia to make final preparations for the highly-anticipated return of JAXA's Hayabusa spacecraft. This luminous re-entry will mark the end of the spacecraft's seven-year journey to bring a sample of asteroid Itokawa back to Earth. Hayabusa is expected to fall to Earth over a vast, unpopulated area of Australia at about midnight local time (7 a.m. PDT) on Sunday, June 13, 2010.

Earlier this week, JAXA announced it successfully completed the guidance of the Hayabusa spacecraft, so that will land in the Woomera Prohibited Area in Australia.

"Hayabusa is hurtling toward Earth at an immense speed, comparable to that of an asteroid impact," said Peter Jenniskens, the observation campaign's principal investigator and a scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., and the SETI Institute, Mountain View, Calif. "The capsule that protects the asteroid sample will be only 6,500 feet ahead of the rest of the spacecraft, which will break into numerous pieces, essentially making it a man-made meteor."

Jenniskens and the team of astronomers onboard the DC-8 will have their instruments secured near the plane's specialized windows. This, paired with their altitude of 39,000 feet far above light pollution and clouds, will enable the scientists to study what happens when the spacecraft and sample return capsule heat up high in the atmosphere. When Hayabusa reaches an altitude of 190,000 feet, its heat shield will experience temperatures of more than 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit, while the gas surrounding the capsule will reach 13,000 degrees Fahrenheit, or hotter than the surface of the sun.

The team's primary goal during the airborne mission is to study the Hayabusa capsule's re-entry to gain technological insight into the heat shield that designers and engineers can use while developing future exploration vehicles. Because of Hayabusa's unique heat shield material, shape and the tremendous interplanetary re-entry speed of 7.58 miles per second, scientists expect its descent will provide new, valuable information about heat shields for computer models of re-entry conditions. JAXA's Hayabusa is expected to be the second fastest man-made object to return to Earth; NASA's Stardust sample return capsule set the record re-entry speed of 7.95 miles per second in January 2006.

"The return of Hayabusa provides NASA and JAXA with a rare opportunity to monitor the performance of an atmospheric entry vehicle at speeds much higher than that of the space shuttle returning from low-Earth orbit," said Jay Grinstead, the observation campaign project manager and a research scientist at NASA Ames. "The spectrum of the light emitted by the gas and surface at these extreme temperatures tells us about the physics and chemistry of atmospheric entry. Our vantage point onboard the DC-8 and the variety of instruments enable us to track the evolution of the spectrum and compare it to simulations used for design and analysis of entry systems."

The airborne observation team also will provide JAXA with data and images obtained during the flight to correlate with JAXA's ground optical and radio observations and assist in locating the capsule on Earth. Since the breakup of the main spacecraft will be visible as well, scientists will use images of the debris to validate computer models astronomers use to predict how an object will fragment and disperse as it enters Earth's atmosphere at these high speeds.

NASA astronomers made similar airborne studies from NASA's DC-8 flying observatory for the September 2008 re-entry of the European Space Agency's Automated Transfer Vehicle "Jules Verne," as well as the Stardust sample return re-entry airborne campaigns. During those missions, NASA scientists studied the light emitted by the descending spacecraft, to better understand the mechanisms of atmospheric entry heats of natural and man-made objects.

The Hayabusa airborne observation campaign is supported by the In-Space Propulsion Technology Project in the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters, Washington.

posted 06-12-2010 09:51 AM               

Here are links to webcasts that I know about: The NASA DC-8 that will be observing the entry from the air plans to offer live feed, but based on what they say on their website I am not sanguine about them being able to handle the bandwidth in real time; here's a Google Earth KML file to use to track the DC-8. Live! Universe is offering a Ustream feed broadcast from Glendambo; I have no idea whether it'll show anything. Media-i.com and NEC will be offering the JAXA control room feed, which will have no audio. "Space Education Television" will be offering some kind of broadcast, but I'm not sure whether it's the audio-less control room feed or something commented; if commented, it'll be in Japanese.

• June 12, 2:00 p.m. CDT - Hayabusa passes within the Moon's orbit, 380,000 kilometers from Earth

• June 13, 2:00 a.m. CDT - Hayabusa passes over Uchinoura Bay, from which it launched seven years ago

• June 13, 5:51 a.m. CDT - At an altitude of 60,000 kilometers (roughly four Earth diameters), the sample return capsule separates with a velocity, relative to the mothership, of 10 centimeters per second. With three hours remaining in the flight, the two will be separated only by about a kilometer when they hit the top of Earth's atmosphere.

• June 13, 8:46 a.m. CDT - Hayabusa and the capsule are at an altitude of only 600 kilometers, traveling at 12 kilometers per second, and pass over western Australia

• June 13, 8:51 a.m. CDT - Atmospheric entry at an altitude of 200 kilometers and a shallow angle of only 10 degrees. Over the next minute or two, the capsule and mothership begin to shine brightly, achieving a maximum brightness of magnitude -5 (brighter than Venus). The mothership, not designed for atmospheric entry, will explode and burn up.

• June 13, About 9:11 a.m. CDT - Landing: It will take 15 to 20 minutes for the capsule to descend under parachute.

posted 06-13-2010 10:35 AM               

Asteroid Explorer "Hayabusa" (MUSES-C) Reentry

Hayabusa separated the capsule at 7:51 p.m. [6:51 a.m. CDT] and reentered the atmosphere at 10:51 p.m. on June 13th, 2010 (JST) [9:51 a.m. CDT].

Hayabusa was launched on May 9, 2003 by M-V rocket and operated for approximately seven years. During its operation, JAXA was able to achieve the difficult mission including Hayabusa's sample capture attempt after its touchdown on the asteroid named Itokawa, and Hayabusa's return to the earth overcoming many hardships.

JAXA would like to appreciate every support to JAXA leading this mission to a great success.

The Hayabusa capsule has just returned to Woomera, Australia. As the next step, JAXA will move forward to the capsule recovery.

Credit: Wakayama University

Reentry and capsule separation from NASA DC-8 over Australia. Higher resolution AVI Credit: NASA

Final image transmitted by Hayabusa before reentry. Credit: JAXA

posted 06-13-2010 12:19 PM               

Result of Capsule Search by Helicopter

After the Hayabusa capsule reentry, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency searched for the capsule by a helicopter and discovered it at the expected landing area in [Woomera Prohibited Area], Australia at 11:56 p.m. on June 13th, 2010 (JST) [10:56 a.m. CDT].

JAXA will start retrieving it in the afternoon on June 14, 2010 (JST).

Credit: JAXA

posted 06-14-2010 08:48 AM               

Retrieving the Capsule completed

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has completed the retrieval of the Hayabusa capsule at 4:08 p.m. on June 14, 2010 JST.

The capsule is deemed intact at the moment.

posted 06-14-2010 08:52 AM               

Capsule heat shield found

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) would like to announce that based on the result of the heat shield search, JAXA found it in [Woomera Prohibited Area] at around 2 p.m. on June 14, 2010 (JST).

JAXA will retrieve the heat shield after tomorrow.

Heat shield (front side). Credit: JAXA

Heat shield (back side). Credit: JAXA

posted 06-14-2010 10:27 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by ilbasso:
Japan is riding high in spaceflight and deserves worldwide recognition for its accomplishments.

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