[meteorite-list] Scientists Peer Inside Hayabusa Asteroid Capsule

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sun, 27 Jun 2010 20:27:26 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <201006280327.o5S3RRW6020016_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n1006/25hayabusa/

Scientists peer inside Hayabusa asteroid capsule
BY STEPHEN CLARK
SPACEFLIGHT NOW
June 25, 2010

Scientists inside a spotless clean room near Tokyo are carefully opening
the drum-shaped capsule from the Hayabusa mission, beginning months of
tedious evaluations to determine whether the $200 million mission
returned dust grains from an asteroid.

In a press release issued Thursday, the Japan Aerospace Exploration
Agency said it will take about a week to fully open the canister inside
the 16-inch-wide re-entry capsule that landed June 13 in the Australian
outback.

Assisted by NASA representatives, Japanese scientists are opening the
capsule in an ultra-clean curation facility at JAXA's Sagamihara campus
near Tokyo.

The craft was flown from Australia to Tokyo, then transported to
Sagamihara on June 18.

An X-ray of the canister showed no sample grains larger than 1
millimeter, or about 1/25 of an inch, according to JAXA.

After cleaning the capsule and opening its outer shell, scientists
measured a small amount of a trace gas from the cylindrical capsule
buried deep inside the re-entry craft.

Researchers are hopeful the gas came from asteroid Itokawa, the object
of Hayabusa's seven-year mission that stretched nearly 4 billion miles
across the solar system.

JAXA is analyzing the gas to determine what its made of and if it was
picked up at the asteroid.

Hayabusa touched down on Itokawa twice during its survey of the asteroid
in late 2005, but its sample collection system failed to activate as
planned. The snafu means Hayabusa almost certainly did not gather large
bits of rock from Itokawa, but JAXA officials believe some small grains
of dust may have been funneled into the sample chamber in the
microgravity environment.

Once the capsule is opened, scientists will pull the sample catcher from
the craft and move it to an adjacent room in a special apparatus
designed to limit the container's exposure to contaminants from Earth.

It could take up to six months to retrieve samples from the canister.
Most of the material will be microscopic grains needing extensive
analysis to determine if they are from the asteroid or elsewhere.

Scientists plan to use a microscope and spectrometer to gauge the size,
origin and chemical make-up of the samples.
Received on Sun 27 Jun 2010 11:27:26 PM PDT