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Space

Hayabusa Probe Lands on Asteroid After All 126

Posted by CmdrTaco from the take-make-me-turn-this-probe-around dept.
pin_gween writes "Reuters.UK is reporting the the Hayabusa space probe successfully landed on the asteroid Itokawa. JAXA officials are trying to determine whether to attempt another landing. The probe has had a series of glitches, and failed to drop a set of instruments upon landing."
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Hayabusa Probe Lands on Asteroid After All More

Hayabusa Probe Lands on Asteroid After All

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  • New name for probe (Score:4, Funny)

    by Viper Daimao ( 911947 ) on Wednesday November 23, 2005 @11:20AM (#14100449) Journal
    Considering that they lost connection with it and how it still managed to land perhaps they should rename it the Zatoichi probe.
    • ..rename it the Zatoichi probe.

      It also would have to kill a whole room of other probes to gain that moniker.

    • Re:New name for probe (Score:2, Informative)

      by BodhiCat ( 925309 )
      For those of you who don't rent movies with subtitles: The Zatoichi movie series is about a blind swordsman who lived in Medieval Japan. Sort of Kurosawa light. I think the original post is trying to say that even though the probe was blind, sort of, it still managed to land. For those who don't know who Kurosawa is ... oh nevermind, go download a reality program about people eating lizards on a desert island.
      • For those who don't know who Kurosawa is ... oh nevermind, go download a reality program about people eating lizards on a desert island.

        Kurosawa, Kurosawa... uh...

        Ah, I remember! That teacher from Azumanga Daioh, right?

    • ...or considering the amount of effort required to keep the thing going, perhaps the Tamagotchi probe?
    • Or, if (well, since) it is the FIRST Japanese probe to land on the asteroid, then if/when it dies, it can be Kurose Ichi (Kuroshita Ichi-kun), the first to die there...

  • It landed, but... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Billosaur ( 927319 ) * <<wgrother> <at> <optonline.net>> on Wednesday November 23, 2005 @11:21AM (#14100454) Journal
    ...apparently did not deploy its sampling tools, which was kind of the point of the mission. Still, it's a pretty major feat and the article says they might try again, to see if they can get their samples. And check out this great image of the asteroid with the probe's shadow [isas.jaxa.jp].

  • I bet (Score:1, Interesting)

    by netkid91 ( 915818 )
    You can turn JAXA into AJAX using only two moves. Anyways....why did they send the probe up anyways

    • Re:I bet (Score:5, Interesting)

      by geomon ( 78680 ) on Wednesday November 23, 2005 @11:25AM (#14100494) Homepage Journal
      Anyways....why did they send the probe up anyways

      For the same reason we send robots into hazardous environments - it is too dangerous to justify sending humans.

      We need to know how to land on asteroids. That skill might become valuable [newscientist.com] someday.

      • Re:I bet (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Billosaur ( 927319 ) * <<wgrother> <at> <optonline.net>> on Wednesday November 23, 2005 @12:02PM (#14100831) Journal
        For the same reason we send robots into hazardous environments - it is too dangerous to justify sending humans.

        Of course it's dangerous! It's space! Vacuum, radiation, and all that. And yes, unmanned probes do a wonderful job scouting things out (look at the Voyager probes and the Mars rovers). But unless we're planning to colonize Mars with von Neumann robots [rattlesnake.com] and allow them to become an advanced civilization bent on destroying humanity (cue Battlestar Galactica theme [imdb.com] [the old one]), Mankind is eventually going out there to face the hazards.

        This is the same argument they made when the idea of going to the Moon came up. Jerome Wiesner, head of the Presidential Science Advisory Committee recomended to Kennedy that unmanned Moon probes would be more cost effective and just as useful in beating the Russians. But the Russian had been besting us in human spaceflight, not probes (it seems like every probe they tried to send to Mars crashed or missed the planet) and in the end, men went to the Moon, though the Surveyor and Ranger probes went there first to scope things out.

        What it comes down to is that there are alway Nervous Nellies who look at the expense and/or danger factor involved in something and go "we shouldn't do that" while simultaneously hiding under their beds. The movement of Mankind to space is inevitable, just as Columbus, Magellan, Cook, the Wright Brothers, and Lindbergh leading us into new frontiers was in their time. You can't stop progress, and anyone who thinks we're going to sit here on our over-crowded, polution-tinged rock and let the robots have all the fun is kidding themselves.

        Besides, I want a job as an asteroid rockhound.

        • What it comes down to is that there are alway Nervous Nellies who look at the expense and/or danger factor involved in something and go "we shouldn't do that" while simultaneously hiding under their beds. The movement of Mankind to space is inevitable, just as Columbus, Magellan, Cook, the Wright Brothers, and Lindbergh leading us into new frontiers was in their time.

          Well, the explorers you have mentioned found habitable lands. I don't think there is many habitable areas close to the Earth worth colonizing.
          • I don't recall the Wright Brothers or Lindbergh discovering any lands at all - unless we're all going to live in the sky somewhere.

            The achievement of each of those pinoeers was in technology and pushing the limit of what everyone thought was possible. I think we should consider all possible ways of pushing our current envelope a bit further, the breakthrough we're waiting for may not come from the direction any of us are gunning for.

          • Re:I bet (Score:3, Informative)

            by Billosaur ( 927319 ) *
            You have obviously read more into my post than I intended. Don't let me stop you from using my post as a platform for your own agenda.

            If I have in fact read more into it, I apologize, but these are things I feel passionate about. As a matter of fact, the greatest saying to come from the Apollo program was "If we can put a man on the Moon, why can't we... [put your favorite problem here]." And truth be told, there is no reason we can't cure cancer or AIDS, house the homeless, feed the hungry. And believe i

            • If I have in fact read more into it, I apologize, but these are things I feel passionate about.

              Don't beat yourself up too much over it as I share some of the sentiment that you have expressed about manned missions. The unfortunate thing about manned missions is that we often ask people to take extraordinary risks for little scientific progress. If the objective is to tweak the nose of your nearest competitor, then that is risk taking for a different objective.

              Manned missions are not necessary to explore our

              • Re:I bet (Score:3, Insightful)

                by shadowbearer ( 554144 )

                If we want to continue growing, sooner or later we're going to *have* to move a lot of our industry off Earth. Your economic thoughts, I think, are based off of the startup efforts. Sure, it'd be expensive as hell, and take literally decades to start showing a profit, but once it did, it would have broken us out of our finite resources here on Earth.

                That's the kind of goal, if you want to achieve it, you start planning as soon as you realize it will one day be necessary. Planning, building,
            • But we can't put a man on the moon!

      • 'risk' is hardly why... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by FooAtWFU ( 699187 ) on Wednesday November 23, 2005 @12:07PM (#14100871) Homepage
        Forget the danger. Humans:
        • are very heavy
        • get cramped, bored
        • need food
        • need water
        • need air
        Robotic probes just run off a power supply. Now consider which is cheaper to launch.
        • Robotic probes just run off a power supply. Now consider which is cheaper to launch.

          Consider which one wouldn't forget to deploy the sensor package after spending all that time and money to get to the target.

          • The humans of course. They built that damn thing.
          • Consider which one wouldn't forget to deploy the sensor package after spending all that time and money to get to the target.

            With the budget for a human-manned probe to one of these things- shall I be conservative at, say, ten billion? for all the safety systems and life support and life support and life support and living space and bigger launch rockets for the huge mass and THEN ensuring that the human doesn't commit suicide out of boredom after hanging around in space for a couple years while they manuve

        • you forgot sex
      • > For the same reason we send robots into hazardous environments - it is too dangerous to justify sending humans.

        That's a good point; you only hinted at the other half of the equation, IMHO.

        Robots let us get the procedure predictable, so when it actually is time to send people to space objects, that we're not doing it for the first time. The ratio of Reward/Risk is much higher with robots then with humans.

        i.e.
        What band puts on a concert without practising?

        Peace

    • Re:I bet (Score:2, Informative)

      by Buzz_Litebeer ( 539463 )
      It can be done in one, move the far A value in JAXA to the front to spell AJAX
    • Funny, I thought it said AJAX.. then again I've been told I am dyslexic at times!
    • Um I think you only need one (Move the 'A' from the end to the begining)

  • Hayabusa? (Score:4, Funny)

    by voice_of_all_reason ( 926702 ) on Wednesday November 23, 2005 @11:24AM (#14100477)
    Make sure it has the fire wheel equipped for Jacquio. And kill the tail first when you fight the statue.

  • Contact? (Score:2, Funny)

    by op12 ( 830015 )
    On Sunday, the probe dropped a small object as a touchdown target from 130 feet above the asteroid and then descended to 56 feet, according to JAXA.

    At that point, ground control lost contact with the probe for about three hours, JAXA officials said.


    Sounds like Contact [imdb.com]. Maybe the probe met some aliens.
    • The reason they didn't beleive Arroway was because the sphere just dropped through the portal in real-time. She said that she'd been gone for hours, but the cameras showed her just dropping.

      The caveat being that The Man knew it had 3 hours of static on her headset, just didn't want to tell anyone because it would give her story credence.

  • Enough of this space drama (Score:5, Funny)

    by technoextreme ( 885694 ) on Wednesday November 23, 2005 @11:28AM (#14100516)
    Just do what NASA does and ram that asteroid kamikaze style.

  • How much AI? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Obvius ( 779709 ) on Wednesday November 23, 2005 @11:28AM (#14100523)
    You have to wonder just how autonomous this probe is, if the news that it successfully landed (and has subsequently taken off again) comes as a surprise to Mission Control.
  • ...they should have bought the upgrade to On Star(tm).
  • Up there somewhere. I think this team should be put in charge of future planet killer asteroid deflection missions. After all what could possibly go wrong?

  • Waiting for the naysayers... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Techguy666 ( 759128 ) on Wednesday November 23, 2005 @11:38AM (#14100630)
    With the number of setbacks the probe has had,I was honestly surprised to hear they made a relatively successful landing (minus the tool deployment). Considering the number of people out there claiming the first lunar landing never happened, I'm also surprised that there aren't more skeptics out there demanding more proof that the probe did land on the asteroid and that this isn't doctored data to help the Japanese space agency save face. I mean, hitting a fast moving target with a glitchy probe is an amazing feat. I guess this isn't a major space agency and this isn't a major project compared to NASA and the first manned lunar landing, so it's not going to attract the attention of the fringe...
    • I wouldn't classify JAXA as a minor space agency. However, it's not the first robotic landing on an asteroid [jhuapl.edu]. NEAR's landing is not in any dispute, as far as I know.

    • Ugh. I'll bite this troll (with useful info too!) (Score:5, Informative)

      by efuseekay ( 138418 ) on Wednesday November 23, 2005 @12:23PM (#14101008)
      The first successful asteroid landing attempt was done on Eros by the NEAR spacecraft :

      See Here. [space.com]

      The amazing thing is that NEAR was not even designed to land : they mission controllers did it because NEAR was running out of fuel and would be turned off anyway so they decided to chance it. They put it down (after a few bounces on the surface too) and turned it off. One day they might try to turn it on again.

      The point is, that it is not impossible to do it. Indeed, the physics is pretty simple. There is no "hitting a fast moving target" problem : the probe is already in orbit and moving pretty slowly relative to the asteroid. The problem is systems engineering : all the problems that you see from the probe is not because some tools malfunctioned outright etc, it is poor integration of systems. Just look at the communications downlink blackout during the landing rehearsal that results in the loss of the MINERVA miniprobe. I mean, come on, you can PREDICT when those blackouts occur!

      Finally, your rant about "Japanese cheating to save face" is just pure flamebait.
      • ops. Reread your post a bit. Sorry, you are not a troll and I misunderstood you. But hey, it is still useful information!
    • 1. Report failure.
      2. Succeed!!!
      3. Profit! (Raise public interest and therefore government $$$)

      I'm usually the last one to break out the conspiracies but...

      I'm starting to wonder if Space Programs aren't going to dramatize project failures or cancellations just to drum up public interest. You need failure or weird events to get press (Man bites Dog). Apollo 13 got the big movie because of its failure, not Apollo 11--the first manned lunar landing. I recall reading once about a televised moon landing f
      • Now that I think about it, I think it was a space shuttle launch that got worse ratings than a baseball game. Anyone remember?
      • Not sure about that, but it's a great moddable point you raise about Apollo 13 the movie, I've never thought of it like that - in history there were seven trips to the moon, and the only one they made a movie out of was the one that didn't get there. What is the world coming to etc.

        If you add Capricorn One to the mix, it's even more infuriating!
    • Targeting an asteroid would be no different than targeting any other free-falling body in space. I think maybe you have some idea that the asteroid might be accelerating randomly. As a matter of fact, the asteroid's path is just as predictable as any other free falling body in space. The asteroid is in free fall (toward the Sun I'm assuming). In fact, according to Einstein's theory of GR, the free falling object isn't really accelerating at all; the asteroid itself is in an inertial frame of reference.
  • I would be killed by frustration alone were I the mission controller. But big kudo's to them, they keep surprising me with their determination and perseverance.

    I bet they'll be trying another landing, otherwise there'd be no use in sending the probe home.

    B.
  • (disclaimer: I know absolutely nothing about this topic)
    Does anybody know whether we could use asteroids to transport probes around space?
    Wouldn't an asteroid potential provide a fast and free transportation system? Wouldn't they provide rudmentary protection against space radaition somewhat?
    If you ask me, NASA and other space agencies should be firing out probes like crazy. Small, inexpensive ones. Do lots of them. And make it so they can communicate with each other. Sort of like a mesh network in space: so one far away could communicate back via other ones.
    We seem to spend a lot of time and money fussing about with silly low gravity science on ISS when we could be exploring the galaxy with probes. I've been very impressed with the Mars probes and would like to see more of that sort of thing.

    • Re:Asteriod rides for deep space exploration? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by david.given ( 6740 ) <dg@cowlark.com> on Wednesday November 23, 2005 @11:59AM (#14100806) Homepage Journal
      Does anybody know whether we could use asteroids to transport probes around space? Wouldn't an asteroid potential provide a fast and free transportation system? Wouldn't an asteroid potential provide a fast and free transportation system?

      No, not really... because in order to get to the asteroid, you've got to match orbits with it, which means that you're already going to whereever the asteroid is going.

      Wouldn't they provide rudmentary protection against space radaition somewhat?

      This might be more useful, but given that the only major cause of radiation in space is the sun, and shielding machines against solar radiation isn't actually that hard, it's probably not worth it.

      If you ask me, NASA and other space agencies should be firing out probes like crazy.

      Absolutely.

      Given that we now have two designs of Mars probe that have proven to be wildly successful --- the Spirit and Opportunity rovers, and the Pathfinder lander --- I think that the right think to do now is to mass produce them, bulk launch them, and drop a dozen of each on Mars. Because the design's been finalised, the cost per probe should be a fraction of what it was for the original; just work from the blueprints. And because you're launching lots, you can stand a higher failure rate, so you can target more interesting parts of the planet. That way you should be able to get some seriously interesting science, very cheaply.

      (The reason why all the Mars probes are showing really boring bits of desert is because they've been deliberately targeted at wide, flat areas to increase the chances that they'll get down safely.)

      • Just because a design has been finalized, does not mean that it's cheaper to "mass produce", and doesn't mean that the mass produced item will be as reliable as the prototype. Repeatable process is the goal of sound engineering practices - but it isn't always the result.

        I agree with you, that it's a good goal, to get to a place where we can mass-produce these things, and take advantage of economies of scale. But it's a completely different engineering problem. And then, you run into the problem of diminis
      • given that the only major cause of radiation in space is the sun

        True, however... objects like jupiter tend to do nasty things with that radiation. Like sweep it up and blast it into Io.

        Earth's van allen belts pose a serious hazard to satellites, which is why most spacecraft are placed specifically in orbits to avoid them. The sun fuels the belts...

        shielding machines against solar radiation isn't actually that hard

        True again. Now design a probe which can survive the environment of Io or Europa for extended p
    • Does anybody know whether we could use asteroids to transport probes around space?
      Nope, that wouldn't work. The orbital velocity of an asteroid (around the Sun) would have to be matched by any probe wanting to land on it in order to hitch a lift. If you're able to expend that amount of fuel catching up with a rock, you don't need the rock in the first place - you can just blaze your own trail.

    • Re:Asteriod rides for deep space exploration? (Score:5, Informative)

      by EnderWigginsXenocide ( 852478 ) on Wednesday November 23, 2005 @12:29PM (#14101057) Homepage
      To land on an asteroid you have to speed up your space probe to a speed that's within a few FPS (Feet Per Second) of your target asteroid, as well as get your probe going in the same direction. Can't meet your 1000 MPH asteroid while you travel at 100 MPH. That's like hitting a wall at 900 MPH.

      Now that's not so hard to do that we'd never consider doing it (in fact we[humans] have done it.)

      Here's the catch. Once your spacecraft/probe is flying at the same speed and in the same direction as the rock you want to ride on, why bother with the landing? Rocks go through space on and on because they are in an orbit, and will follow that orbit till pushed out of orbit (gravity, impact, thrust from a drive.) Your spacecraft/probe will also stay in the same orbit until it is pushed out of that orbit.

      So, now that we have some super-simplified physics we can get to the point.

      If you're going to burn a certain amount fuel to put your craft into a certain orbit it'll stay in that orbit. It dosen't make a diffrence if it's sharing that orbit with a rock or going solo. Trying to set up an elaborate ballet between your probe and another body is a risk that's not needed (unless your goal is to study those bodies found in space.)

      As far as protection from radiation goes, spacecraft have spent decades (Voyager craft) in space with radiation shielding integrated into them certainly seems like enough that we don't need to use asteroids (of unknown composition) for radiation shielding.

      As far as the use of landing on asteroids, there's a whole hell of a lot that we don't know about them. It is worthwhile to make these landings for the sake of learning about our solar system. (Not looking for a debate on funding for space science vs spending elsewhere.)
      • Good point.
        (which was, for those not seeing the parent, that to land on an asteroid, you have to be going as fast, and in the same direction as, the asteroid, so there's no point)

        I have a query though... wouldn't there still be an advantage to landing on an asteroid? One would think that the much higher mass of the asteroid would help immunize the spacecraft from the effects of minor gravitational anomalies... basically, the big heavy rock is much less likely to get tugged off course than a tiny little spac
    • Since no one else took the mesh network one, I will. Consider that the probes would likely be millions of miles from each other. It's very expensive to carry high power transmitters and high gain antennas on these probes - you're much better off using very large antennas on Earth to communicate with them. Except for special cases like the Mars rovers where they're not more than a few hundred kilometers from their relay satellites, it would be much harder to make the probes capable of talking to each othe
    • What if they sped up fast enough to land on the asteroids, and then used the remaining fuel (if any) to power a generator that would keep transmissions coming for a long time? Instead of just being probes, they could also be communications waypoints. I don't know about this though, the asteroid may be of material that blocks transmissions.

      But if they put various probes in about 8 places on the asteroid belt, we would have a good communications mesh around the solar system.

      Just some food for thought, I guess

  • Land Again? (Score:1, Funny)

    by faqmaster ( 172770 )
    I don't know why they think they can land it again. Once you're voted off the asteroid, that's it - you go home.
  • Too fast [pashnit.com] to keep in contact?

  • Bummer (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Chr0nik ( 928538 )
    I guess third time is not a charm, pretty good college try for their fledgeling space agency. I hope they do better on their ramp up to build a base on the moon by 2025 [space.com]. These kinds of problems on a mission like that could spell disaster. I wonder if anyone over there is thinking, "Maybe we should just stick with robots."
  • There was only ONE camera recording the event...
    • That's what they want you to believe, but it's a Japanese probe - behind that camera is a crowd of 600 Japanese teenagers holding up their camera-phones.

  • projection (Score:5, Interesting)

    by msbsod ( 574856 ) on Wednesday November 23, 2005 @12:15PM (#14100943)
    Over a distance of 3x10^11 m they land on an object only 548 m long. The corresponding opening angle is so small that my calculator cannot do the math.

    Congratulations!
    • 548 / 3 = 182.66

      548 / (3 x 10^11) = 182.66 * 10^-11 = 1,8266 * 10^-9

      Don't forget that you should be smarter than your calculator...

    • Re:projection (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Oh yeah? Well, recently I was in an airplane, that flew 6000km across the Atlantic and parked at the terminal skyway within 10cm accuracy. That's just as good.
      • It's no great feat to hit a small target if you're using feedback to course correct as you go. The hard part is deploying the probe, not getting there.

        • Re:Mod Parent Up (Score:2, Informative)

          by msbsod ( 574856 )
          It takes a signal from earth almost 17 minutes to reach the spacecraft. It takes the same time to get feedback. Also think about the spacecraft's and asteroid's speed. Just try to steer your car with a delay of half an hour. Now you have the right feeling, eh? I think ESA, JAXA, NASA, etc. are doing an amazing job.
          • Steering a car with 30 minutes delay would indeed be really hard. I think that's why they rejected the steering wheel as a mechanism for controlling the probe and used computers and maths and stuff instead.
  • And after all those millions of dollars into the probe... Houston! The asteroid is made of cheese! :P

  • MUSES Sea: All your bases are belong to us! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Storyline:
    On Nov. 9, the Hayabusa moved within 70 meters of the Itokawa during a descending test that aimed to verify the guidance and navigation functions.
    The cause of an anomaly that led to the cancellation of the rehearsal scheduled on Nov. 4 was clarified, thus we will carry out its landing at the "MUSES Sea" and sampling under the following schedule.

    Captain: What happen ?
    Mechanic: Somebody set up us the bomb.
    Operator: We get signal.
    Captain: What !
    Operator: Main screen turn on.
    Captain: It's you !!
    CATS:
  • I wonder what CD-ROM they were listening to when they lost connection to the space probe?

    Sony strikes again.....

  • Landing in Oz, eh? (Score:3, Funny)

    by whitehatlurker ( 867714 ) on Wednesday November 23, 2005 @12:41PM (#14101142) Journal
    Hayabusa was launched in May 2003 and has until early December before it must leave orbit and begin its journey home. It is expected to return to Earth and land in the Australian Outback in June 2007.

    Hmmm. It's going to have to hussle its metallic behind to make that deadline.

    The last part just reminds me of the Monks' song "Skylab":
    Take 1000000 and 3
    SKYLAB! [repeated]
    [Australian accent] Ouch ... something came down on me head. Look at the size of that. It looks like a bloody big tin can.
    [Other Australian] You reckon it's got any beer in it?

  • That's no moon, look at the symbol [storiescomics.com] in the picture [isas.jaxa.jp]. They have stumbled across the planet of the guardians [wikipedia.org]
  • Just like nuclear weapons, supersonic flight, and a few others this was bound to happen. Science-fiction is made reality once more. That little 'probe' is surely a katamari ball they used rolled up an asteroid - now on to the planet-size level! And from the Japanese no less.
  • Hayabusa has dropped that plaque bearing the names of Steven Spielberg and Arthur C. Clarke, and if not, might there still a chance on the next approach?!?
  • Stage 1: Land, really hard.
    Stage 2: Cry and whine while huge bump forms on the probe.
    Stage 3: Hit asteroid with really huge wooden mallet while screaming
                      "BAKA!"
  • While the Japanese are launching stuff what is this guy doing? Nice "Shuttle" ;)
  • Some years ago I signed up for the chance to have my name, and the names of my family engraved on the marker thingy that got fired at the asteroid. Apparently, it's sitting on the asteroid now.

    I've been looking on the web to find a copy of the list, so I can prove that I did it, but I can't find one anywhere. Anyone know where the list is? A link would be appreciated.

    fnord

  • (From a Brit) Beagle 2, Hayabusa, erm... Venera 3... it has to be said, when it comes to landing craft on celestial bodies and actually doing stuff, the USA i.e. NASA gets it right every time (ok, neeearly). Well, us Europeans did plop Huygens onto Titan's surface, but it didn't last long. Next time, could we just pay you guys to build it? Uh, while we're there, perhaps you could land it for us too. And make it do what we sent it there for.

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