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Hayabusa Probe Lands on Asteroid After All
pin_gween writes "Reuters.UK is reporting the the Hayabusa space probe successfully landed on the asteroid Itokawa. JAXA officials are trying to determine whether to attempt another landing. The probe has had a series of glitches, and failed to drop a set of instruments upon landing."
Considering that they lost connection with it and how it still managed to land perhaps they should rename it the Zatoichi probe.
"In the game of life, someone always has to lose. To me, if life were fair, that someone would always be Oklahoma." -DKR
...apparently did not deploy its sampling tools, which was kind of the point of the mission. Still, it's a pretty major feat and the article says they might try again, to see if they can get their samples. And check out this great image of the asteroid with the probe's shadow.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
Look, a TIE-fighter shadow! (which as everyone knows, is a short-range fighter.)
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Make sure it has the fire wheel equipped for Jacquio. And kill the tail first when you fight the statue.
Anyways....why did they send the probe up anyways
For the same reason we send robots into hazardous environments - it is too dangerous to justify sending humans.
We need to know how to land on asteroids. That skill might become valuable someday.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
Just do what NASA does and ram that asteroid kamikaze style.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
You have to wonder just how autonomous this probe is, if the news that it successfully landed (and has subsequently taken off again) comes as a surprise to Mission Control.
With the number of setbacks the probe has had,I was honestly surprised to hear they made a relatively successful landing (minus the tool deployment). Considering the number of people out there claiming the first lunar landing never happened, I'm also surprised that there aren't more skeptics out there demanding more proof that the probe did land on the asteroid and that this isn't doctored data to help the Japanese space agency save face. I mean, hitting a fast moving target with a glitchy probe is an amazing feat. I guess this isn't a major space agency and this isn't a major project compared to NASA and the first manned lunar landing, so it's not going to attract the attention of the fringe...
(disclaimer: I know absolutely nothing about this topic)
Does anybody know whether we could use asteroids to transport probes around space?
Wouldn't an asteroid potential provide a fast and free transportation system? Wouldn't they provide rudmentary protection against space radaition somewhat?
If you ask me, NASA and other space agencies should be firing out probes like crazy. Small, inexpensive ones. Do lots of them. And make it so they can communicate with each other. Sort of like a mesh network in space: so one far away could communicate back via other ones.
We seem to spend a lot of time and money fussing about with silly low gravity science on ISS when we could be exploring the galaxy with probes. I've been very impressed with the Mars probes and would like to see more of that sort of thing.
Of course it's dangerous! It's space! Vacuum, radiation, and all that. And yes, unmanned probes do a wonderful job scouting things out (look at the Voyager probes and the Mars rovers). But unless we're planning to colonize Mars with von Neumann robots and allow them to become an advanced civilization bent on destroying humanity (cue Battlestar Galactica theme [the old one]), Mankind is eventually going out there to face the hazards.
This is the same argument they made when the idea of going to the Moon came up. Jerome Wiesner, head of the Presidential Science Advisory Committee recomended to Kennedy that unmanned Moon probes would be more cost effective and just as useful in beating the Russians. But the Russian had been besting us in human spaceflight, not probes (it seems like every probe they tried to send to Mars crashed or missed the planet) and in the end, men went to the Moon, though the Surveyor and Ranger probes went there first to scope things out.
What it comes down to is that there are alway Nervous Nellies who look at the expense and/or danger factor involved in something and go "we shouldn't do that" while simultaneously hiding under their beds. The movement of Mankind to space is inevitable, just as Columbus, Magellan, Cook, the Wright Brothers, and Lindbergh leading us into new frontiers was in their time. You can't stop progress, and anyone who thinks we're going to sit here on our over-crowded, polution-tinged rock and let the robots have all the fun is kidding themselves.
Besides, I want a job as an asteroid rockhound.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
- are very heavy
- get cramped, bored
- need food
- need water
- need air
Robotic probes just run off a power supply. Now consider which is cheaper to launch.The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Over a distance of 3x10^11 m they land on an object only 548 m long. The corresponding opening angle is so small that my calculator cannot do the math.
Congratulations!
The first successful asteroid landing attempt was done on Eros by the NEAR spacecraft :
See Here.
The amazing thing is that NEAR was not even designed to land : they mission controllers did it because NEAR was running out of fuel and would be turned off anyway so they decided to chance it. They put it down (after a few bounces on the surface too) and turned it off. One day they might try to turn it on again.
The point is, that it is not impossible to do it. Indeed, the physics is pretty simple. There is no "hitting a fast moving target" problem : the probe is already in orbit and moving pretty slowly relative to the asteroid. The problem is systems engineering : all the problems that you see from the probe is not because some tools malfunctioned outright etc, it is poor integration of systems. Just look at the communications downlink blackout during the landing rehearsal that results in the loss of the MINERVA miniprobe. I mean, come on, you can PREDICT when those blackouts occur!
Finally, your rant about "Japanese cheating to save face" is just pure flamebait.
Mode (3) smart-aleck mode. Press * to return to main menu.
Hmmm. It's going to have to hussle its metallic behind to make that deadline.
The last part just reminds me of the Monks' song "Skylab": ... something came down on me head. Look at the size of that. It looks like a bloody big tin can.
Take 1000000 and 3
SKYLAB! [repeated]
[Australian accent] Ouch
[Other Australian] You reckon it's got any beer in it?
.. paranoid crackpot leftover from the days of Amiga.