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Space

Hayabusa Probe Fails Landing Attempt 86

Posted by Zonk from the so-close dept.
wschalle writes "Yesterday, at 3:46 PM EST the probe successfully dropped a small object onto the asteroid as a touchdown target. JAXA then apparently lost control of the probe for 3 hours. The probe went to an auto-pilot mode during the communications failure, collecting data about its flight and saving it for later transmission. The probe's exact location is unknown, but it is estimated to be between 10 and 100 kilometers from the asteroid at this time. The mission has been troubled by repeated failures, including the loss of a small robotic lander, and a gyroscope failure that was later repaired."
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Hayabusa Probe Fails Landing Attempt More

Hayabusa Probe Fails Landing Attempt

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  • Close. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Chickenofbristol55 ( 884806 ) on Sunday November 20, 2005 @02:48PM (#14076650) Homepage
    but it is estimated to be between 10 and 100 kilometers from the asteroid at this time.

    That's kind of like that epidemiologist saying "the deaths from the bird flu could range from 5 to 150 million"

    The point is we have no idea. It's easier that way, trust me.

    • Really, in space terms, that's not that far apart. 10 to 100 km is a pretty decent estimate for a object millions of km away from Earth. It's kind of like an epidemiologist saying "the deaths from H5N1 could range from 100-110 million"
    • I think 10 to 100 kilometers is a pretty good estimate considering it is something like 180,000,000 kilometers away.

    • Perspective (Score:3, Interesting)

      by everphilski ( 877346 )
      10-100 km is dead on at a range of 288,923,070km... its a matter of perspective. IE: if I shot a bullet at a target and I was off by 1km, i was way off, but if I was off by 1mm I was close. Same thing here, but the scale shifts to a much larger one.

      -everphilski-

      • Re:Perspective (Score:3, Insightful)

        by rewinn ( 647614 )

        >if I shot a bullet at a target...

        The comparison in inapposite, because bullets can't do mid-course corrections.

        I'm not saying that 100 km ain't pretty darn good; it's just that spacecraft are not at all comparable to bullets, at least until the reaction mass is used up.

    • The probe has been in orbit around the asteroid for several days now. In this attempt to land, it got down to only 10 meters from the surface and was supposed to guide itself down on autopilot, fire a penetrator into the surface and capture debris kicked up from that action. Apparently somewhere right around that 10 meter mark, it either decided it was time to take off again and ascended, probably without taking the sample. Since communication has been spotty, they're not sure exactly how high it ascended t
  • Hey, is it me, or did I just think that Zonk made a typing error and wrote JAXA instead of AJAX....!! ??
    Or maybe too many AJAX stories have clouded my judgement :)
  • It appears that the probe is soon going to meat up with it's little robotic brother.

  • Heros are good (Score:1, Funny)

    by r3tex ( 900024 )
    as long as bruce willis is on that spaceship everything'll be fine

  • I think that 'care factor = 0'.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by demondawn ( 840015 ) on Sunday November 20, 2005 @02:54PM (#14076684) Journal
    ...really underscores people's interest in the space program in the United States nowadays. It seems that because Japan is interested in doing -science-, rather than flag-waving, it's not nearly as glamorous. Of course, the same could be said of the U.S. Space Program. George W. Bush said he wants us to go to the Moon again. I haven't heard anything about science in his statement on the topic; merely flag-waving.
    Now don't get me wrong, patriotism is a great thing. I think there are many applications that could benefit any nation that goes into space, and I applaud the Japanese for undertaking such an ambitious project (which, if you read TFA, may still succeed!)

    • Re:I think that 'care factor = 0'.... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Pharmboy ( 216950 ) on Sunday November 20, 2005 @03:25PM (#14076825) Journal
      I haven't heard anything about science in his statement on the topic; merely flag-waving.

      I have, but not from GW, who isn't a scientist anyway. Although Steven Hawking would disagree [com.com] about going to Mars (or the moon), there is some logic to going back to the moon, if we ever expect to do hard core space exploration. We will need a place to launch from, and the moon fits the ticket. It is close enough that we can supply it and rescue from it (remember, we will have many more space crafts at that time). It is also close enough that we can more afford to have crews there. Also, it is easier to capture people's imaginations (and tax dollars) about a station on the moon, especially if it can be seen with a telescope.

      It has 1/6th of the earth's gravity, so it will be easier to launch from, and there may be enough raw materials on the moon to use for fuel to begin with, reducing the amount of fuel we have to send to start with. It is the closest and safest place to test theories about space travel, which is not a safe business to begin with. There *IS* commercial potential as well. If commercial space travel seems far fetched, ask Burt Rutan [wikipedia.org] of Scaled Composites [scaled.com], or Sir Richard Branson [wikipedia.org], the owner of Virgin Galactic [virgingalactic.com], who is investing heavily in the concept of commercial space travel.

      I'm not saying this is the best way (because I don't know...), but there is a fair amount of logic *IF* we ever expect to have regular space travel, more than once or twice a year beyond our own planet. Personally, I can't think of a better way for the science communities of all countries to get together, and every country could participate, even if in some small way.

      Many people thought JFK was out of his mind for thinking we could go to the moon before 1970, but you don't hear about them any more since we actually did it.

    • Re:I think that 'care factor = 0'.... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Liam Slider ( 908600 ) on Sunday November 20, 2005 @03:29PM (#14076843)
      George W. Bush said he wants us to go to the Moon again. I haven't heard anything about science in his statement on the topic; merely flag-waving.
      Not flag waving. Also not quite pure science. The main interest in the current US administration in going to the Moon is in aquiring important resources and the ability to use said resources. We're going there to do what everyone else keeps claiming we Americans do best....exploitation. Not some silly flag planting and nationalistic bullshit. Good for us I say.
      • You like exploring so you CAN wave your flag when you get there, not get back and then make detailed cost benifit analyses. Dont lie to yourself. Its realy obvious.

        Every Damn time you went to the moon you rammed a flagpole in the dirt and proudly marked the fact that AMERICA GOT HERE FIRST.

        Seriously. Dont say your exploring for anything more than your own national pride.
        • I didn't say exploring I said exploiting. We want to go there and mine that fat resource cow that is the moon. We should be mining the near earth asteroids while we're at it but that doesn't seem to be on the agenda. Maybe later.

        • Every Damn time you went to the moon you rammed a flagpole in the dirt and proudly marked the fact that AMERICA GOT HERE FIRST.

          Everyone does that -- every time they get to the Moon :-)

          And not just to the Moon -- the North and South Poles explorers were carrying their countries' flags with them too, for example. As did mountain climbers -- getting to some peak, that was not scaled before (to their knowledge). As do sportsmen today -- on every competition... Nothing is wrong with that.

          You are just upset

    • ...really underscores people's interest in the space program in the United States nowadays. It seems that because Japan is interested in doing -science-, rather than flag-waving, it's not nearly as glamorous. Of course, the same could be said of the U.S. Space Program. George W. Bush said he wants us to go to the Moon again. I haven't heard anything about science in his statement on the topic; merely flag-waving.

      George W. Bush waved a flag and said he wants to take you to Moon again. Japanese produce an

    • Now don't get me wrong, patriotism is a great thing.

      I think you misspelled "nationalism".
    • I haven't heard anything about science in his statement on the topic; merely flag-waving.

      I don't think it's the flag he's been waving.

  • uhhhh.... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    why did they send a motorcycle into space....

    obviously it wouldn't work....

  • "Hey, NASA, can we borrow another 100 million dollars and two, no make that three more rockets?"

  • DRM aboard (Score:4, Funny)

    by k00110 ( 932544 ) on Sunday November 20, 2005 @02:57PM (#14076697)
    communications failure
    The sony rootkit was calling home at that time
    • Sony engineer: Hey, which DVD zone is "outer space" in?
      Sony attack lawyer: Oh, that's ... that's no zone! Illegal! Illegal!

      Watch out for the sparks when the Sony attack sharks re-entry in a coupla days, I guess ...
  • Giving the huge importance of success/failure for the japanese. Will we be linking to the first couple of harakiris on this??
  • Maybe it felt that target gismo land and it tickled it, so it moved out of the way of the main probe?

    --
    Cheers, Gene
    "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
      soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
    -Ed Howdershelt (Author)
    99.36% setiathome rank, not too shabby for a WV hillbilly

  • Heh. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Visceral Monkey ( 583103 ) on Sunday November 20, 2005 @03:01PM (#14076721)
    I blame Mothra.

  • I hate to be harsh to the Japanese/JAXA, but... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by TrevorB ( 57780 ) on Sunday November 20, 2005 @03:01PM (#14076723) Homepage
    What is the failure rate of Japanese science spacecraft that leave LEO? If memory serves, it seems somewhat high.

    (goes off to check for himself [wikipedia.org]...)

    Looks like there's not enough data to say. Good luck in their future endeavours...
    • This is, what they'd call it, purely an engineering mission with scientific goals in mind.

      In other words, they have never done any of these things (flying out autonomously, release a probe, land on an object, and return to the Earth) and this is their first test mission. It was thought to be too freaking bold to try all that at the first attempt; but they tried it anyway.

      The mission is plagued with technical failures; the failure of torque wheels is probably the worst. That really made that autonomous part

      • Re:I hate to be harsh to the Japanese/JAXA, but... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by richdun ( 672214 ) on Sunday November 20, 2005 @03:33PM (#14076860)
        As someone who has worked in/around Japanese space hardware (the JEM intended for ISS), I can say that JAXA knows how to build a great spacecraft, maybe even better, cleaner, and with more emphasis on absolute accuracy than some American spacecraft. Like parent said, this was their first time doing a lot of these things, so I'm sure they'll learn plenty from this and get it right the next time.
        • What this really underscores is that this space stuff is really, really hard. It's a tremendously complex endeavor with many, many variables completely unknown and little margin of error.

          Also, while the Japanese have had a fair number of failures lately, remember that although the technology is better now, experience-wise they are in a much earlier stage of their program than the U.S. or Russia/USSR (remember, say, Mariner 1,3, and 8 and half a dozen Pioneer missions? Or the zillion mysterious "Kosmos" miss
    • ...and get some good Japa... oh, wait...

  • It's Rocket Science (Score:5, Insightful)

    by blueZhift ( 652272 ) on Sunday November 20, 2005 @03:01PM (#14076726) Homepage Journal
    This is just another reminder that this is rocket science and isn't an easy thing to pull off. I can't help but wonder how easy or difficult it is for more experienced groups like NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, to share information and expertise with newer groups. For purely scientific missions like this, global collaboration would probably have helped a lot. Not that there wasn't any of that at all, but I do wonder.

    In any case, I hope they won't be soured on future missions. Failures are just a part of the learning process.
    • It is hard to get these low-gravity rondevue things right the first time. (Even hard to spell it.) Generally you have to keep trying to learn from past mistakes. Unfortunately, space missions are so expensive that nobody wants to fund retries.

    • Re:It's Rocket Science (Score:5, Interesting)

      by cyclone96 ( 129449 ) on Sunday November 20, 2005 @04:26PM (#14077154)
      It actually can be legally very difficult to share information with foreign entities about how to fly things in space (even friendly ones). Under American law, a lot of space technology is considered "defense articles" and fall under the jurisdiction of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) laws.

      Legally, JPL (or an engineer working for them) would need to make sure that they were not violating ITAR (i.e., get the lawyers involved) or get an exception made (which is NOT easy). This usually requires some sort of official collaboration that is in place before the mission begins.

      For example, this exists to a limited extent on the International Space Station. I work for NASA on ISS as a federal employee. I have a specific exemption such that I can share information with the European Space Agency on how to design/fly a resupply vehicle to ISS. Some of my contractors do not have this exemption. It's actually a huge pain to work around, and the contractors are extremely protective of their interests (as they ought to be, Hughes was fined an enormous amount of money when they helped the Chinese troubleshoot a problem in the Long March rocket). In the worst case, you can in fact end up in jail for violating ITAR laws.

      ITAR has been the subject of a great deal of debate. On one hand, space technology is a keystone of the defense of the United States and protecting it legally sounds like a good idea. On the other hand, ITAR laws have caused many satellite buyers to purchase non-American hardware, which hurts the industry and stifles the very innovation in space technology that gives the US such an upper hand.
    • The NEAR [jhuapl.edu] mission successfully successfully executed similar mission profile to Hayabusa, minus the sample return. NEAR successfully landed on the asteroid even though it wasn't a lander at all. This after a spectacular recovery after a botched first encounter. JPL does not have a monopoly on mission management in the US. The Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins has put together an impressive number of successful missions. As for the Japanese success rate. They're learning just fine. No need for the U
  • Where's the "YOU FAIL IT" troll when you need him?

    I wonder why there have been such mission affecting mishaps on this ship? Where were the quality control teams?
  • Some spots on that asteroid are pretty interesting looking. There is one section with big, sharp boulders sticking out. It looks more like Holywood asteroids than the flat-rounded-edge ones we normally see from probes. I'll see if I cannot find some image links....

    Even if the science goals are not met, it was an esthetic success at least. Now one can use it as a reference when they make a space movie with jagged roids. If somebody says "that's too Hollywood looking", pull out the Hayabusa photos with the ja

  • Experience helps (Score:5, Informative)

    by Brett Buck ( 811747 ) on Sunday November 20, 2005 @03:44PM (#14076911)
    I think there are an awful lot of excessively harsh comments here. These guys are trying to do a very difficult mission with virtually no applicable experience. Sure, there's a lot of information that, say, NASA (or more accurately, the contractors who work for NASA/DOD/other customers) has, but you simply can't effectively transfer the experience needed for this type of engineering.

          By the way, there are some very good reasons* that US space projects take so long and cost so much. It's because there are enough experienced engineers around to know where to worry and what to worry about. That didn't build up in a few tries. Some contractors have literally hundreds, bordering on a thousand, successful space missions under their belts.

          All the documents and "design processes" in the world cannot make up for having a few guys around with the necessary background to take a look at the design or implementation, and just see where the obvious problem areas might me.

            It's a tough loss, but it's just the cost traversing of the learning curve.

          Brett

        * Of course, there are some "bad reasons" for overruns and schedule slips, too - usually, overly-optimistic schedules and budgets! In fact, a lot of the time there is no one in the entire acquisition system that has a stake in getting the *real* cost or *real* schedule.
  • Great way for the U.S. to "stay ahead" of the space race while sabotaging other nations' efforts: Export non-metric system components to foreign space agencies. "Yeah, looks like they were looking up furlongs per fortnight instead of kilometers per hour."
    • Actually US companies torpedo scientific projects in the US, too. NASA lost not too long ago a Mars probe thanks to Lockheed Martin's difficulties with the metric system (NASA does use the metric system, of course). I have seen enough blueprints which were converted from metric to imperial back to metric. Precise specs were screwed up by companies still using feet, inches, pounds and all that shit. Like the Romans! "Madness has no purpose. Or reason. But it may have a goal." -- Spock, "The Alternative Facto

  • Hayabusa? pfft (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Should of used a gsx 1000r. Better handling.

  • NOOOOO! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Xaositecte ( 897197 ) on Sunday November 20, 2005 @04:31PM (#14077169) Journal
    Definantely the work of Jaquio...

  • oblig Back to the Future Reference (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Doc Brown: "Unbelievable that this little piece of junk could be such a big problem. No wonder this circuit failed, it says 'made in Japan.'"

  • lost and found (Score:3, Funny)

    by G-Sil ( 932618 ) on Sunday November 20, 2005 @04:48PM (#14077240)
    " the probe successfully dropped a small object onto the asteroid as a touchdown target. JAXA then apparently lost control of the probe for 3 hours. " I still think the object they dropped was really really really important.
  • Loses to King Slender after missing his patented "Back Brain Kick"

  • Probe still alive; another attempt in a few days (Score:5, Informative)

    by FleaPlus ( 6935 ) on Sunday November 20, 2005 @06:27PM (#14077785) Journal
    The summary makes it sound like it's over for the probe, which is far from the case. Emily Lakdawalla of the Planetary Society has been keeping track of the latest details [planetary.org]. According to her posts, although it will take several days to get the probe back into the proper position, they should be ready for another landing attempt sometime next week.
  • Yeah, A Hayabusa is hard to control;
    it is, after all, the fastest 1/4 mile production bike.
    I bet NASA needs a new fairing for their Hayabusa.....
  • Phew, first I thought: oh no, not another story about AJAX.
  • "The Hayabusa... apparently lost control"

    Later reports cited an investigation which revealed that the Hayabusa was being controlled by a squid in shorts and flip-flops, who was not properly licensed, and had his protective helmet perched atop his head in order to conduct a conversation on his cell phone. The squid's name had not been released to the press.
  • A clock is flashing: 12:00, 12:00, 12:00 ...
  • Japan's Hayabusa asteroid sampling spacecraft made a pass at an asteroid today


    However, it turned out that the asteroid was "date bait" and paid by match.com; hence, no contact was made. The Japanese space agency is considering sueing match.com for racketeering and the loss of its space "probe".

  • Public Relations Error: I'd care more ... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by fygment ( 444210 ) on Sunday November 20, 2005 @11:18PM (#14079043)
    ... if like Cassini/Huygens, there were regular releases of publicly available imagery (ideally, raw). Look at all the work and publicity that was scored when amateurs were the first to process the publicly released shots of Titan. Instead, JAXA haven't been in the public eye except, seemingly, for the mission's failures! Who's in charge of their public relations?
  • ...thank you for playing, and there will be some lovely consolation prizes backstage!

    At the ISAS web site [isas.jaxa.jp] they have a scorecard for measuring mission success. They seem to have achieved a score of 750 out of a possible 1950. I understand they got some excellent close up photos of the Itokawa asteroid, but the collection and return was where the really big points lay.

    Better luck next time, and please do play again! :-)
  • Ignignot: We are Mooninites from the inner core of the Moon. Ur: You said it right! Ignignot: Our race is hundreds of years beyond yours. Ur: Man, you hear what he's sayin'? Ignignot: Some would say that the Earth is *our* moon. Ur: *We're* the Moon! Ignignot: But that would belittle the name of our Moon, which is the Moon. Ur: Point is, we're at the center, not you! Carl: No, the real point is I don't give a damn.
  • According to Matsura's blog [air-nifty.com], Hayabusa actually landed on the asteroid and stayed on surface for 30 minuites. But the sampling gun did not fire. The press kit has not been placed on the JAXA site yet. This is an amazing engineering success with a small group of very dedicated people (with very tight budget).
    • "But the sampling gun did not fire" So is there any actual proof that it did land? Id like to see some actual images form the surface of the asteroid. At least show that to the general public, rather then slinging out a comment that can be torn apart by critics.
      • There is a page [isas.jaxa.jp] of all the technical details, such as the trajectory in the inertial frame and the astroid frame, the Doppler-measured velocity and the integrated distance, laser distance meter, etc. These data clearly indicate that Hayabusa landed on the asteroid, bounced two times, and sat there for 30 minites, and it left the asteroid. It is the first spacecraft that succeeded in landing on a extraterrestrial object other than the moon and leaving it.

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