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Hayabusa To Begin Long Journey Back to Earth
Sparky writes "Japan is planning to set the Hayabusa spacecraft on a trajectory back to Earth next month after a delay of more than a year, but it's far from certain that it will get back safely. It was supposed to retrieve asteroid debris, but it's thought that a computer error prevented that from happening. A fuel leak means that its chemical thrusters are out of action, and the craft is relying on its weaker ion engines. The journey back will take 3 years, and the capsule will be on Earth in June 2010 — even if it is empty."
Hayabusa To Begin Long Journey Back to Earth
I'm sure Ken and Guile miss him.
Wizard Needs Food, Badly
What's the point in bringing it back if it's empty? Why not park it out of the way somewhere where it can be retrieved or recycled later, or repaired for another attempt?
Ninjas from outer space!!!! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryu_Hayabusa
Well better late than never as far as Ninja Gaiden 2 goes, I suppose. I was wondering when I should get around to fixing my Xbox 360.
I like basketball!!1!
The journey back will take 3 years, and the capsule will be on Earth in June 2010 -- even if it is empty.
Scientists will crack it open to find a black iPod signed by an unknown alien garage band.
Basically, the technology to retrieve a satellite from where it is now is likely just as hard as the original mission. Additionally, by the time retrieval would be possible, what would be the point? Technology marches ever on; even if they could retrieve Hayabusa, it's old technology now.
:)
Additionally, such probes are one-shot devices. The components are built to specs to survive hard solar radiation, exposure to space, and all the extreme temperatures involved. I'd venture to guess they'd have to basically rebuild the satellite almost completely to be able to make another attempt with it. It's cheaper to just start from scratch and include the advances available to you.
Now, why bother trying to get it home? It's by no means as important as Apollo 13 (in that no lives are depending on it), but to take a probe that's seen better days and get it all the way back home in the face of what appear to be nearly insurmountable odds has quite a bit of sentimental value. For Japan to get Hayabusa home even in such a depleted state, it would be a great honor to their scientists. (And the fact that there's still *some* chance, albeit very small, that there may have been some material captured just makes it that much better.)
It's the "Incredible Journey" of satellites, or perhaps more apropos, it's the wounded samurai doing everything he can to make it back home before he dies. Very Japanese, and quite a good potential story, too.
Just sound cool. The Hayabusa is powered by four xenon Ion Engines. It is using xenon ions generated by microwave ECR, and a Carbon / Carbon-composite material for acceleration grid which is resistant to erosion.
The navigation systems shut down for 13 months, only 2/16 engines work reliably, 2/3 of the wheels failed and pellet gyn failed to fire. Yet they're bringing it back to Earth "in case some asteroid dust had slipped into its collection chamber by chance." Because they're feeling lucky?
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Mmm! Hayabusa!
If you love bikes, and you haven't seen these, you should.
Is it wrong that I want one of these?
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Aahhh, what an age we live in. Now give me lightsabres and I'll be happy.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
with the probe in space there is little hope of finding out what wen't wrong, back on earth on the other hand.....
also it sounds like there is the off chance it got its sample so may as well find out
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
The fastest motorcyle on Earth. No doubt.
God spoke to me.
Maybe we can get some more usefulness out of the spacecraft still. Crash it into something, the moon, an asteroid, the sun? I'm not really sure if the satellite has enough fuel to do any of those things, but it's worth a try. Better, I think, than returning an empty capsule to Earth.
If this thing comes back inside a large cloud and wants tom kill^H^H^H^H merge with it's creator, I know where to send it :)
"My God...it's full of...nothing..."
...but it's thought that a computer error prevented that from happening...Maybe they didn't have patch their WINDOWS and got BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death)
Which is quite funny... cause I've never seen a dedicated computer running Linux which crashed due to Kernel Panic
Quite a funny thought
A Winner Is You!
They should smash it against a comet. There is nothing to bring back anyway. Why now use it to extract useful spectrum data instead? Especially if they are out of fuel, there will be less noise the organics lines, assuming the standard hydrazine propellant. We already know that ion engines work, what are they trying to show? On the other hand, we know that there are organics in comets but we don't know much more than that. Beside, smashing stuff is always fun.
A man with binoculars. That is how it began: with a man standing by the side of the road, on a crest overlooking a small Arizona town, on a winter night. Lieutenant Roger Shawn must have found the binoculars difficult. The metal would be cold, and he would be clumsy in his fur parka and heavy gloves.
Hayabusa..... why would one name a spacecraft hayabusa?
2010 is the next solar maximum! Who wants to place bets that the nav circuits on this thing get scrambled on its way back!?
Should have used ZX-14!
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
did Suzuki start making spacecraft?
I can hardly wait to see the desicated corpses of Billy Bob Thornton and Ben Affleck on Entertainment Tonight! ---wait, wrong mission...
If you read the timeline of hayabusa's journey it has just been incredible how many things failed. I mean, practically everything imaginable went wrong with this thing. I wouldn't be surprised if their primary purpose in bringing it back was simply to salvage a modicum of dignity. Seriously. They able to upload and download its software. That should be enough to tell a lot about what was wrong with it. I mean, it's not as if they can't tell probably 90% of what they problems were just through data. I'm guessing they're just bringing it back for the sake of at least being able to claim that they got a spacecraft, that was designed to go somewhere and then come back, to actually come back, even if it didn't fulfill any of the purposes for which its coming back was to be useful.
You know... in a karma kind of way...
From Deep Space 1;
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Why whould they send a motorcycle to space? And can I have thrusters for mine, too? This internal combustion thing will never get me out of the atmo...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryu_Hayabusa
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
"Only 2/16 engines work reliably, 2/3 of the wheels failed"... and its STILL better than anything Detroit makes. Now they're going to try crashing it into a planet to show NASA that they're not the only space agency capable of... crashing something into a planet. Japan was miffed when the European Space Agency got the drop on them last year and slammed something into the moon.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
Ion engines can reach high speeds, it's the acceleration that is slow. You are talking about an acceleration of about 27kph per day to reach 4.5kps after 20 months.
s/per day/per hour/
The journey back will take 3 years, and the capsule will be on Earth in June 2010
It'll be much faster than that. Godzilla will give it a push.
space probe malfunctioned millions of dollars wasted beam me up scotty