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Space News

Japanese 'Minerva' Robot Lost in Space 201

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the danger-will-robinson dept.
space_weasel writes "A little Japanese robot that was supposed to land on the surface of an asteroid has accidentally been flung into space by its mothership. New Scientist Space reports that the accident occurred as the data link with the spacecraft was being switched from an station in Japan to one in Australia. Mission controllers still plan to punch a hole in the asteroid and collect samples, which will be returned to Earth."
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Japanese 'Minerva' Robot Lost in Space More

Japanese 'Minerva' Robot Lost in Space

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  • High Anxiety (Score:5, Funny)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Monday November 14, 2005 @12:06PM (#14026599) Homepage Journal
    Dammit, they can't even handoff mission control without losing the probe, and they still think it's OK to go around punching holes in ancient celestial objects? What if they miss?

    • Re:High Anxiety (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      If they miss, then at least they won't get sued by some idiot astrologer for affecting her "readings."

      (Note: using "her" instead of "him" to appear sensitive to political correctness, not because most astrologers are women. If you even thought that, you're sexist!$#@!!1)
      • If they miss the asteroid, and hit the astrologer, they might still get sued... from beyond the grave (bwahahahaha).

        • Re:High Anxiety (Score:3, Insightful)

          by smooth wombat ( 796938 )
          they might still get sued...

          Yeah, killing a scientist is really a bad thing.

          For those who have no idea what I'm talking about I would refer you to this link [newscientist.com] about the new definition of science from the folks who are trying to bring us Intelligent Design.

          • Re:High Anxiety (Score:5, Funny)

            by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Monday November 14, 2005 @12:52PM (#14027043) Homepage Journal
            Intelligent Design is the theory that aliens designed life on Earth, right? And the bible is just the old man page, written by a clueless man operator?

            • Re:High Anxiety (Score:5, Funny)

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 14, 2005 @01:27PM (#14027384)
              You joke, but I know something many of you probably haven't heard of.

              The 2nd law of thermodynamics against Evolution. A chaotic soup of particles doesn't just magically tend towards order. For scientists to have any credibility, they would have to prove that there is some sort of huge source of energy external to the Earth. Consider this: according to my calculations, there would need to be at LEAST a few million terawatts of power hitting the Earth's surface, averaged over a year, for any of what we see now to have happened.

              What say you now? *Crickets chirping.*

              • Re:High Anxiety (Score:3, Insightful)

                by databyss ( 586137 )
                The laws of thermodynamics have very little influence here since they all deal with a closed system.

                You'll find that the laws of physics and the laws of thermodynamics call for pockets or order within the larger system as a whole.
              • You underestimate the universal driving urge to find lunch and have sex. Even particles have urges, man.

              • Re:High Anxiety (Score:2, Informative)

                by AtomicDevice ( 926814 )
                To quote MC Hawking, "the second law is quite specific as to where it applies, only in a closed system must the entropy count rise, the earth is not a closed system, it's powered by the sun"

                • I had a physics lecturer at College who pushed the AC's argument while teaching thermodynamics to us. I gave him the same answer and he agreed with me.

                  This guy was not at all stupid. One of the best teachers in that place. Funny how some otherwise intelligent people have the need to talk rubbish from time to time.

              • Six replies so far, and only one of them has seen the light!

                God help the poor, overly-literal nerds, as evolution clearly hasn't.

                Justin.

            • Harebrained Design might actually be plausible. The Designer was obviously unwilling to refactor our code--I mean, look at how our spines break down within the projected operating lifetime of a human even when used well within operational parameters. Isn't it about time we deprecated all our quadrupedal functions?
              • The design objective of the Intelligent Designer was to produce a global species that would welcome the arrival of the Designer with absolute unquestioning worship, along with extremely high degrees of physical comforts - for the Designer. Mission Accomplished, and human suffering ignored.
              • Yeah, I mean, come on. The appendix has been deprecated for millenia and we still haven't gotten a design update.
            • Moderation +3
                  80% Funny
                  20% Flamebait
                  Total Score: 5

              Now that's an extreme moderation. Those extra "Flamebait" TrollMods just cleared the way for extra "Funny" mods. Thanks, ChrisTrolliban!
    • As of the last report, mission control is unconcerned about the chances for the primary mission. The lost probe (Codenamed "Major Tom") was "supposed to do that" and does not hamper the mission in the least. The mothership (Codename "HAL") still has another unit aboard (Codename "Dave") that should be able to complete the mission without incident. According to the recent communication from "Dave", the mothership will no longer eject things into space^W^W^W^W^W^W^W is in perfect condition to complete the mis
  • and I get stressed when my ping hops over 50ms while playing online action games. I couldn't imaging a 16minute lag.

  • wonder if it might still be able to land on a few chairs thrown from Redmond some days ago.

  • Warning, Will Robinson (Score:3, Funny)

    by dada21 ( 163177 ) * <adam.dada@gmail.com> on Monday November 14, 2005 @12:08PM (#14026622) Homepage Journal
    How do you say "Blame Dr. Smith" in Japanese?
  • Must have been a bug-eyed anime probe that made a high pitched squealing sound as it was "flung off into space" by the mothership...

  • What I really dread... (Score:5, Funny)

    by OakDragon ( 885217 ) on Monday November 14, 2005 @12:09PM (#14026629) Journal
    ...is, after roaming the galaxy for 200 years collecting information, it will come back to Earth to destroy us.

    • Re: What I really dread... (Score:4, Funny)

      by Black Parrot ( 19622 ) on Monday November 14, 2005 @12:39PM (#14026915)
      > ...is, after roaming the galaxy for 200 years collecting information, it will come back to Earth to destroy us.

      The good news is, this one doesn't seem capable of finding anything.

  • what the robots were thinking.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by tont0r ( 868535 ) on Monday November 14, 2005 @12:09PM (#14026631)
    robot 1 : target acquired, beginning landing sequence...
    robot 2 : roger that, beginning land... OH LOOK A STAR!
    [all robots turn towards the star]
    robot 3 : OOHHHHHHHHHHH PRETTY!!!!

  • huh (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Lindz ( 930928 ) on Monday November 14, 2005 @12:09PM (#14026633)
    'Still, he admits that mission controllers do not fully understand how to deal with the spacecraft's motion after the periodic thruster firings' Then why are they mission controllers????

    • Read a bit earlier -- this was already a kludge (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ianscot ( 591483 ) on Monday November 14, 2005 @12:32PM (#14026857)
      "But this "dress rehearsal" was cut short because mission controllers could not accurately guide the spacecraft using its fuel thrusters - a contingency solution devised following the failure of two of the craft's three stabilising reaction wheels."

      This was a series of truly bad rolls of the dice. Two of their three stablizers failed, they had bad altimeter data because "the slope of the asteroid's surface had apparently caused the altimeter to misjudge... estimates of the craft's altitude," and then they got below 100 meters while the antenna switchover was happening. They sent the separate command without realizing the thrusters to maintain minimum altitude had just fired, because of that break in communications. So the article says, though it's not a sterling example of great science writing, I'll give you that.

      The "mission officials are saying "Our readiness was not so complete," to their credit, but it's not like they're complete incompetents. More like they're pushing the technology: the altimeter hadn't ever been used before, for the obvious example.

      Sort of fits the cheaper/faster model of robotic exploration. You have your hits and your misses. This isn't a Cassini Cadillac of a probe.

      • I was wondering if Minerva might have troubles of its own. Japan has been putting quite a bit of effort into developing space exploration over the last couple of years, but don't have the benefit of screwing up as many times as the US and Russia have. You learn a lot from failing abysmally. They're on a good start though. A few commercial rockets blowing up here and there, then that probe that died after almost reaching Mars a couple years late due to a navigation problem. Give them time and a few billion m
    • At just 10cm, why didn't they send up more then one of these robots? The bots could have even colonized once they got there...

    • Re:huh (Score:2)

      by bani ( 467531 )
      RTFA? It's all explained in there.

  • Whoops! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Skye16 ( 685048 ) on Monday November 14, 2005 @12:10PM (#14026636)
    I wonder how, exactly, the software being used had the capability to allow this to happen. Even if the problem were procedural, I would think that, on transfer of control, you would lock down all non-essential functions - like "flinging" payloads into space - until control has been successfully handed off.

    Of course, this is all pointless conjecture on my part - it may have been a hardware malfunction, for all I know. It would be interesting to analyze things like these. Having only a few years real-world experience, I doubt my programming skills would be worth a damn, but I would be thrilled just to have the opportunity to read the code they use before hand. Generally I don't volunteer my time to OSS-like programs, but this is one situation where I could easily see myself helping. Or trying to help, more like it.

    Then again, by releasing it beforehand open source, someone else may very well be able to analyze the code and "steal" control of the probe/satellite/whatever-is-using-the-software, possibly using it for nefarious gain, or possibly just being a bunch of dicks. So this probably wouldn't pan out. Still, a nerd can dream.

    • Re:Whoops! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Otter ( 3800 ) on Monday November 14, 2005 @12:31PM (#14026844) Journal
      Even if the problem were procedural, I would think that, on transfer of control, you would lock down all non-essential functions - like "flinging" payloads into space - until control has been successfully handed off.

      As I understand the story (which could easily be wrong), they had to issue the release command blindly, because the need to make the adjustment came up precisely when Murphy's Law predicts. Having the flexibility to do so at least allowed them to make the gamble that they wound up losing.

    • It was hardware and circumstance (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ianscot ( 591483 ) on Monday November 14, 2005 @12:47PM (#14026991)
      Of course, this is all pointless conjecture on my part - it may have been a hardware malfunction, for all I know.

      You'd sure know more if you went to the (somewhat unclear) article, which would obviate the need for lots of your conjecture.

      The main probe has been going on one of its three "stablizing wheels," the other two having failed. There's a sidebar link in the article to an earlier one about those failures. Mission controllers have been burning extra fuel keeping the thing at the right distance from the asteroid, facing the asteroid, and with its solar panels facing the sun; they already had that against them. Then the altimeter data they were getting was bad, they were closer than they thought, because some combination of the laser altimeter (previously untested) and the slope of the asteroid's surface confused the data.

      They realized they were within 100 meters and had to send the detach command while the antenna switch was happening. The blackout prevented them from realizing a "keep above minimum altitude" engine thrust had just gone off.

      This is much more of a reflection of this model of probe: it's cheaper, it's faster to develop, and there are going to be failures like the Beagle and this.

      (Personally I do think there'd be a big gain if, before and after missions like this, the code got reviewed. I doubt very much that hackers in Idaho would have foreseen the failed stabilizers, the workaround, the potential for misjudging the altimeter data, and the combination of the blackout and the necessity for the release command. But in terms of intellectual freedom, it'd be a nice statement, and the Post Mortems would sure feature a lot of people asking Feynman-esque questions about icewater and O-rings.)

  • I have a bad feeling about this (Score:5, Funny)

    by s20451 ( 410424 ) on Monday November 14, 2005 @12:10PM (#14026639) Journal
    If Star Trek has taught us nothing else, it is that probes lost in space are a bad [scifilm.org] thing [imdb.com]. And the fact that it's Japanese means that it's definitely going to come back and go apeshit [imdb.com].

  • Oh, dear. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Black Parrot ( 19622 ) on Monday November 14, 2005 @12:10PM (#14026641)
    When working with the USA, spacecraft get lost due to forgetting to switch between metric and common units.

    When working with Australia, spacecraft get lost due to forgetting that their maps of the universe are up-side-down.
    • My condolences to all the hard working japanese scientists and engineers who have seen their dream shattered today. This must have hurt badly.

      • Re: Oh, dear. (Score:4, Funny)

        by Black Parrot ( 19622 ) on Monday November 14, 2005 @01:01PM (#14027133)
        > My condolences to all the hard working japanese scientists and engineers who have seen their dream shattered today. This must have hurt badly.

        Well, if we're lucky it will hit some random alien in the ass, and we'll get a bit of payback for all the unauthorized probing.

    • Re:Oh, dear. (Score:5, Funny)

      by jda487 ( 646991 ) on Monday November 14, 2005 @01:13PM (#14027246)
      When working with the USA, spacecraft get lost due to forgetting to switch between imperial and common (SI) units.
      Fixed
      • ...but one might realize that from an American's PoV (the poster was almost certainly American) imperial units ARE "common"?

        I'm sorry, but just because we don't subscribe to your particular social engineering doesn't make us bad. I work for a German firm and *constantly* get bugged by the question "why don't you just switch to metric - it's so much simpler!"

        First of all, I point out that US firms and people HAVE switched to metric in many of the sciences and international transport, where it IS simpler.
        Fur
        • If I have an inch standard, I can go fairly easily down to an accurate 1/32 or even 1/64 of an inch. Without a ruler with accurately scribed gradations, can you measure me 0.396875 cm?

          Please tell me you're not being serious there. Do you honestly believe that centimetres can't be halved recursively too? Or, a more realistic solution, a metric person can pull an ordinary plastic ruler out of their desk drawer, and mark off 4mm (all metric rulers are marked with mm, some even half or quarter mm, except perh
        • Other than inches in feet, what else in the imperial system uses 12? There are 16 ounces in an inch, three feet in a yard, 8 furlongs in a mile, 14 pounds in a stone, 8 stone in a hundredweight. I'm not seeing many 12s there.

          12 is a number that can be divided by 2, 3, 4, and their multiples very easily, and still end up in integer units again without equipment. The decimal metric system gets icky when you try to divide anything by anything except 5 and 2.

          You can't divide 12 by 5 and get a whole number eithe

  • Cybernature is Cruel (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 14, 2005 @12:11PM (#14026649)
    "A little Japanese robot... flung into space by its mothership...

    Exonature is as cruel as mothernature herself. Obviously, the mothership began to ovulate, and, sensing a potential mate nearby, cruelly cast off her young to fend for itself.

  • Gorf (Score:2, Funny)

    by fm2503 ( 876331 )
    "Game over space cadet"

  • That's why we need AI in space (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MOBE2001 ( 263700 ) on Monday November 14, 2005 @12:17PM (#14026704) Homepage Journal
    During this 40-minute antenna change, information about the spacecraft's vertical motion was unavailable to ground controllers.

    For a country which prides itself as being at the forefront of robotics technology, this is rather surprising. The latency inherent in space communication over great distances is the primary reason for using intelligent robots in space. If the probe was sufficiently intelligent, it would perform its tasks without supervision from ground control. I hope they (including NASA and the ESA) put a lot more effort into automating their space probes in the future.

    • Re:That's why we need AI in space (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 14, 2005 @12:39PM (#14026911)
      Sounds good, but apparently doesn't work in practice. See DART [wikipedia.org]. People who who work with space stuff are by necessity very VERY conservative since stuff costs so much (of course, things cost so much because everything is endlessly tested and evaluated which costs a small fortune for each piece of electronics on the vehicle, but that's a different story). But regardless, the managers who have to sign off to take the financial responsibility for a vehicle are going to be highly suspicious of an autonomous vehicle given the limited success we've had it in it so far.

      Of course, I understand the russians have been doing it for years (Progress Cargo Spacecraft [wikipedia.org]).

      Disclaimer: IWARE (i *was* a rocket engineer)

  • Had to see it coming... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Gruneun ( 261463 ) on Monday November 14, 2005 @12:22PM (#14026752)
    The probe was named Minerva, after the Roman goddess of wisdom and skill. The mothership is named Hayabusa, after the world's fastest flying bird.

    Unfortunately, the mission controller was named Bob, after the Roman god of lazy eyes and uncoordinated pitching.
    • Unfortunately, the mission controller was named Bob

      Isn't Bob an especially annoying of in-house developed Microsoft software. Maybe the final version of the source code to Bob was on the robot and this was the only way to get rid of it forever!

  • As seen on 'Mork & Mindy' (Score:3, Funny)

    by ThePatrioticFuck ( 640185 ) on Monday November 14, 2005 @12:33PM (#14026866)
    Mork : "Fly, be free!" [SPLAT]
  • Mission controllers John and Maureen Robinson briefly left the control room to attend to an unforseen family crisis involving their children, Judy, William and Penny. Mission scientist Dr. Zachary Smith was left in charge of the lander. When chief mission controller Major Don West came into the control room an hour later to relieve Dr. Smith, the probe was found to have drifted off the asteroid after faulty commands were sent from one of the mission computers. Investigators later found a giant magnet st

  • Children, children! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Dirtside ( 91468 ) on Monday November 14, 2005 @12:39PM (#14026907) Journal
    Mission controllers still plan to punch a hole in the asteroid
    Now, now, don't go around punching things just because you lost your robot. We'll just make another one, okay? Here, have a lollipop.
  • to recover that probe.

    This looks like a job for Gekiganger III [google.com]!

  • Ouch! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Nom du Keyboard ( 633989 ) on Monday November 14, 2005 @12:56PM (#14027090)
    accidentally been flung into space by its mothership.

    I told you not to pinch your mother there!

  • We all know what happened (Score:3, Funny)

    by Riktov ( 632 ) on Monday November 14, 2005 @01:14PM (#14027258) Journal
    Someone set up them the bomb.
  • Personally I find this a bit sad; it would have been great to see the little thing in action, hopping all over another world investigating things. I mean, these projects take years to design and get there - it's not like they can send another one tomorrow.

  • Common problem? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Bombula ( 670389 )
    It seems like motors, solar panels and stabilizers are always the thing that fail on spacecraft. Seriously, it's the sort plot device Star Trek episodes are criticized for - "Captain, the left stabilizer is failing - I can't balance the phase inducers!"

    Is there some reason why we can't make these things tougher or more redundant?

  • Flying Bag of Money (Score:5, Funny)

    by Puhase ( 911920 ) on Monday November 14, 2005 @01:16PM (#14027284)
    As a politician instead of a scientist, the first thing that came to mind when I read this story were the faces of the people who made the budget for that robot. They just heard that their spacecraft flung a $20million bag of money into the great unknown. I imagine that feels just about the same as getting kicked square in the nuts.

    • Re:Flying Bag of Money (Score:4, Funny)

      by vertinox ( 846076 ) on Monday November 14, 2005 @02:32PM (#14027973)
      As a politician instead of a scientist, the first thing that came to mind when I read this story were the faces of the people who made the budget for that robot. They just heard that their spacecraft flung a $20million bag of money into the great unknown. I imagine that feels just about the same as getting kicked square in the nuts.

      Moreso than not, because this is the first step in inventing a robot that flings politicians into deep space.
      • Moreso than not, because this is the first step in inventing a robot that flings politicians into deep space.

        So, how far along are they on this politician deep space launching robot? And, speaking of this does anyone have anything to which I could to get elected? Or cheap long-duration spacesuits?

        Heck, I hear that there's an as yet untouched asteroid [newscientistspace.com] at which you could even target the robot.
  • As I am sure it may have been posted before, didn't Minerva have some type of visual lock-on/homing mechanism that will automatically find the largest rock nearby and move towards it? I guess it is not that sophisticated, or it just missed its trajectory due to the 40-minute atennae switch.

    My other theory is that Minerva (feeling lonely, isolated and missing her father) just went on to Jupiter to say hi to her Dad.

  • One Word..... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Mr. BS ( 788514 ) on Monday November 14, 2005 @01:21PM (#14027325)
    Ffffuuuukkkkooooovvvvvv!!!!!!
  • They went for the little sheild circle thing and accidently hit the button for hyperspace. The little triangle ship reapeared brieftly but was shot out of the sky by a small saucer shaped imagine with little dots.

  • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • This is a job for Aibo! (Score:3, Funny)

    by keraneuology ( 760918 ) on Monday November 14, 2005 @01:50PM (#14027602) Journal
    Go fetch, boy! Go fetch the little robot!

  • Some pictures (Score:2, Informative)

    by biraneto2 ( 910162 )
    Here [isas.jaxa.jp] you can see Minerva (and it's cover) saying "so long and thanks for all the batteries" (In japanese, of course). Also there are pictures of Hayabusa taken from Minerva (first 2)
  • So, will people start trying to remotely install Linux on it?
  • The German version, not the crappy english one:

    Völlig losgelöst
    von der Erde
    schwebt das Raumschiff
    völlig schwerelos

  • schedules a critical task like launching a robot during a data link switch?? Couldn't wait a minute so the change was complete?

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