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Hayabusa 2 Asteroid Probe Postponed By Weather Until Early December

Posted by timothy on from the or-just-whenever dept.

As reported by The Register, Japan's Hayabusa 2 mission to mine (or at least sample) an asteroid, which was to have been launched Saturday, has been delayed by weather, until a time no earlier than Monday, Dec. 1st (and from JAXA's web site, it appears that Dec. 3rd is the current target): If all goes to plan, the space probe will lift off next month and fly out to asteroid 1999JU3 by mid-2018 using ion engines. The craft will orbit the rock before dropping a bomb onto the surface. The resulting blast should leave a hole [in] the asteroid. The probe will then land and dig around in the rubble for material from below the surface using a "sampler horn". The probe will then take off again and head for home carrying its booty, and is due to return in 2020 or slightly later.

24 comments

  1. How... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Do you drop a bomb in zero gravity? Like normal, just much slower?

    1. Re:How... by ls671 · · Score: 1

      Not a very friendly approach anyway if you ask me. I hope no species get the same idea with planet Earth as target for their research.

      --
      Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
    2. Re:How... by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 1

      Are there now politically correct and non-politically correct ways to take samples of asteroids? Apparently so.

      The word "bomb" is probably not the best choice, though. It might be better to describe it as "blasting" rather than "bombing". The technical differences are possibly minor in this case, but the semantic differences are significant.

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
    3. Re:How... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      with planet Earth as target for their research.

      Supreme Dalek, the time has come. Now, detonate the Reality Bomb!

    4. Re:How... by Buck+Feta · · Score: 1

      Not a very friendly approach anyway if you ask me. I hope no species get the same idea with planet Earth as target for their research.

      Yes, I hope nobody ever drops a bomb on the Japanese in retaliation for something.

      --
      I am Audience.
    5. Re:How... by quenda · · Score: 1

      Do you drop a bomb in zero gravity?

      You need a smart bomb. A _very_ smart bomb. The Japanese have developed Bomb #20.

    6. Re:How... by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      Are there now politically correct and non-politically correct ways to take samples of asteroids?

      What's political correctness got to do with it? If the asteroid belongs to an advanced alien civilisation, they might take it as a declaration of war, and vapourise the Earth with an anti-matter bomb. Or something.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
  2. somebody set us up the bomb ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    you have no chance to survive make your time !

    1. Re:somebody set us up the bomb ! by 4444444 · · Score: 1

      Take off all Zig !

      --

      http://Lenny.com
      4 great justice!
  3. Forget it by Kvathe · · Score: 1

    A 4-day delay on a 6-year mission? Not even worth it anymore, just scrap the thing. Asteroids will be old news 4 days after the original return date.

    1. Re:Forget it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are right; the mission is a failure already. See told you those Japs can't do space. Just like the europeans they will probably do less than 99.9% of the science on the mission.

  4. nice incremental refinement of the mission by Trepidity · · Score: 2

    The first Hayabusa mission, also by the Japanese space agency, successfully returned a small amount of material taken from the surface of a comet. Blasting to extract some more material seems likely to add additional scientific data, while building on technology and a mission profile that has already been successfully used once.

    --
    10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
    1. Re:nice incremental refinement of the mission by Trepidity · · Score: 1

      Whoops, I mis-typed: of course, it was from the surface of an asteroid, not comet. Same as with this mission.

      There has actually been one sample-return mission to a comet, NASA's Stardust, but it didn't land on it.

      --
      10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
  5. TIE Bomber? by spiritplumber · · Score: 2

    So you could call it an ion-engine bomber? (And now I'm off to try to recreate this mission in KSP).

    --
    Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.
  6. Crazy Japanese! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You can't ride a Suzuki into space! What are you thinking?

  7. Delayed until early December by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So until tomorrow then?

  8. Is there anything ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is there anything in comets/asteroid that would make economic sense to mine that way?

    1. Re:Is there anything ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My understanding is that the cost advantages come from being able to deliver tons of material, for example water ice which can be used to make fuel and oxygen, to orbit without needing to burn through thousands more tons of stuff to get it there.

  9. In other news: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    An asteroid dwelling xenophobic race has declared war on Earth.

  10. Best of luck by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 3, Interesting

    At least more luck than Akatsuki, missed Venus orbit, and Nozomi, missed Mars orbit.

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    Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
    1. Re:Best of luck by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      At least Akatsuki will get a second try at Vevus capture.

  11. Much like how boring the mission actually is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's really more of a SIE bomber. I mean what a whammy it much be to the japanese space program to have a probe that won't just bomb with a wimper, but with a sie.

    ^.^

  12. If you follow the links by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hayabusa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    MINERVA mini-lander https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    To (Lander) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... which shows the lunar lander, me thinks
    it's a tad smaller.