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Hayabusa Probe Fails Landing Attempt
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."
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.
public class null extends java applet { System.out.print ("Tabula Rasa"); }
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.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
as long as bruce willis is on that spaceship everything'll be fine
...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!)
Going back to school for entry-level jobs?
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?"
Viable Slashdot alternatives: https://pipedot.org/ and http://soylentnews.org/
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
I blame Mothra.
*Fortitudo, aequitas, fidelitas.*
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...)
Looks like there's not enough data to say. Good luck in their future endeavours...
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.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
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?
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
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 jagged boulders.
Table-ized A.I.
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.
(probably 5 million, but) It could ONE HUNDRED FIFTY MILLION!!!
(To rip off The Daily Show.)
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."
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-
Should of used a gsx 1000r. Better handling.
I am getting reports that they will attempt another landing on November 25th (JST), provided that the mishap is understood and the position of the satellite is corrected.
Definantely the work of Jaquio...
The NEAR 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 US to train its competition.
an ill wind that blows no good
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.'"
" 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"
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. 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.
It's called vulture media culture.
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.....
I am the unwilling control for my Origin.
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.
(i was waiting for that response...) Some bullets can, look up a paper by Williams, Hahn, et. al. http://pdf.aiaa.org/preview/CDReadyMJPC2005_1177/P V2005_3847.pdf ... I'm one of the authors and yea, there are bullets that do mid-course corrections :P (many others exist... in existance and conceptual. Just mention this paper cause i knew where it was on the top of my head)
My point is magnitudes of scale. Yes they missed, but if you compare the error - its 3E-7. JAXA was being overabmitious, if you look at their prior projects they just didn't have the experiance to do this kinda thing, they did a damn fine job doing just this.
-everphilski-
I thought he said JAVA.
:)
Was this close to making a "ha-I-told-you-C-was-faster" post
A clock is flashing: 12:00, 12:00, 12:00 ...
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".
... 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?
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
...thank you for playing, and there will be some lovely consolation prizes backstage!
:-)
At the ISAS web site 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!
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced. - Geek's corollary to Clarke's law
...and get some good Japa... oh, wait...
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced. - Geek's corollary to Clarke's law
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.
They seem to have achieved a score of 750 out of a possible 1950.
Were they eaten by a space grue?
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
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, that it is not your flag :-)
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
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 to.
The plan has been to make two such landings, so they have enough fuel for another go around. If I remember correctly, they originally planned more, but the failure of their reaction wheels meant the landings had to be entirely directed by rocket firings. With the low gravity, I don't think damage from free-falling too fast is a problem, but bouncing back up and possibly getting turned upside down as a result might be.
According to Matsura's blog, 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).