[meteorite-list] Mission to Bring Back Bits of Asteroid Spots Target (Hayabusa)

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon Aug 15 16:28:19 2005
Message-ID: <200508152027.j7FKRJE23060_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.space.com/astronotes/astronotes.html

Mission to Bring Back Bits of Asteroid Spots Target
space.com
August 15, 2005
 
The first round-trip mission to an asteroid has its quarry in sight.

The Japanese robotic probe Hayabusa, formerly called Muses-C, is on a
four-year, 400-million-mile mission (600 million kilometers) to bring
back samples of asteroid Itokawa. If successful, it will provide the
first material from space returned since the Moon rocks of the Apollo era.

Mission officials today announced that the probe had tracked the
asteroid in a series of 24 images from July 29 to Aug. 12. The asteroid
appears as no more than a point of light in the pictures taken by
Hayabusa's star tracking camera, but seeing it is a milestone for the
mission.

As of Friday, the spacecraft was 21,750 miles (35,000 kilometers) from
the rock and slowing down. Its high-tech ion engine will soon be turned
off. It will then come to rest, relative to the asteroid, 12.4 miles (20
kilometers) away.

After studying the asteroid from this perch for three months, Hayabusa
will fire a bullet into the rock and collect ejected fragments. About
two years later, it will parachute back to Earth.

Itokawa is a potato-shaped rock about just more than a third of a mile
(600 meters) long. It is named after Hideo Itokawa, a Japanese rocket
pioneer. NASA, which launched the probe, expects it to provide "a wealth
of scientific return."
Received on Mon 15 Aug 2005 04:27:18 PM PDT