There is a page of all the technical details, such as the trajectory in the inertial frame and the astroid frame, the Doppler-measured velocity and the integrated distance, laser distance meter, etc. These data clearly indicate that Hayabusa landed on the asteroid, bounced two times, and sat there for 30 minites, and it left the asteroid. It is the first spacecraft that succeeded in landing on a extraterrestrial object other than the moon and leaving it.
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).
Hubble Origins Probe, a rebuild of Hubble with modern technology on a expendible launch, will cost only $750M - $1000 according to the following report.
Slashdot Mirror
There is a page of all the technical details, such as the trajectory in the inertial frame and the astroid frame, the Doppler-measured velocity and the integrated distance, laser distance meter, etc. These data clearly indicate that Hayabusa landed on the asteroid, bounced two times, and sat there for 30 minites, and it left the asteroid. It is the first spacecraft that succeeded in landing on a extraterrestrial object other than the moon and leaving it.
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).
Hubble Origins Probe, a rebuild of Hubble with modern technology on a expendible launch, will cost only $750M - $1000 according to the following report.
http://www.pha.jhu.edu/groups/ astro/Colin%20HOP_final_noBudget.pdf