JAXA Hayabusa reveals source of Earth asteroids

The longstanding mystery of where most meteorites striking our planet come from has now been solved by the first asteroid samples that a spacecraft has ever returned to Earth.

This discovery is just one of many unearthed with the aid of the Japanese asteroid probe Hayabusa.

Another is that asteroids may be shrinking away to nothing, researchers said.

Hayabusa faced many perils on its seven-year mission, including fuel leaks, engine trouble and the loss of the lander intended to gather space rock samples.

Nevertheless, the unmanned mission succeeded when a capsule containing more than 1,500 grains of asteroid dust parachuted into the Australian outback in June 2010. [Photos: Japan's Mission to Asteroid Itokawa]

JAXA Hayabusa spacecraft returned with Asteroid dust

Scientists involved with the first space mission attempting to sample asteroid surface material and return to Earth, have confirmed presence of particles collected from a small container aboard the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Hayabusa spacecraft.

On June 13, 2010, Hayabusa visited the near-Earth asteroid, called Itokawa.

The spacecraft landed at Australia's remote Woomera Test Range in South Australia, concluding a remarkable mission of exploration -- one in which NASA scientists and engineers played a contributing role.

Initial research from an electron microscope reveals about 1500 grains identified as rocky particles, and judged to be of extraterrestrial origin from the asteroid. Their size is mostly less than 10 micrometers. Handling these grains requires very special skills and techniques.

JAXA is developing the necessary handling techniques and preparing the associated equipment for further analyses.

Launched May 9, 2003, from the Kagoshima Space Center, Uchinoura, Japan, Hayabusa was designed as a flying testbed. Its mission: to research several new engineering technologies necessary for returning planetary samples to Earth for further study.

With Hayabusa, JAXA scientists and engineers hoped to obtain detailed information on electrical propulsion and autonomous navigation, as well as an asteroid sampler and sample reentry capsule.

The 510-kilogram (950-pound) Hayabusa spacecraft rendezvoused with asteroid Itokawa in September 2005. Over the next two-and-a-half months, the spacecraft made up-close and personal scientific observations of the asteroid's shape, terrain, surface altitude distribution, mineral composition, gravity, and the way it reflected the sun's rays.

On Nov. 25 of that year, Hayabusa briefly touched down on the surface of Itokawa. That was only the second time in history a spacecraft descended to the surface of an asteroid (NASA's Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous-Shoemaker spacecraft landed on asteroid Eros on Feb. 12, 2001).

Schedule for opening Asteroid Explorer HAYABUSA (MUSES-C) Sample Container

JAXA announce that they will start opening the sample container of HAYABUSA on June 24, 2010 (Japan Standard Time) in the curation center (*1) at the JAXA Sagamihara Campus. It will take about one week to finish opening the sample container (*2).

Reentry Capsule of HAYABUSA

(*1) Curation Center : the facility that accepts samples and provides treatment and storage of the samples.

(*2) Sample container : A box inside the capsule where the samples are stored.

The curation operations are being carried out in cooperation with NASA.

JAXA Hayabusa capsule recovered in Australian Outback

A helicopter found the capsule about an hour after the return Japanese scientists began the process on Monday of retrieving the Hayabusa capsule from the Australian Outback.

The canister and its delivery spacecraft fell to Earth during the night, the culmination of a seven-year round trip to asteroid Itokawa.

The first photo of the capsule, which landed in the Woomera Prohibited Area, shows it still attached to a parachute.

The researchers will prepare the canister for evacuation to Japan. They will hope it holds samples of Itokawa.

If that is confirmed, it would be the first time fragments of rock had been picked up off the surface of an asteroid and returned to Earth.

But scientists caution it could be some weeks before they are able to confirm the presence of Itokawa dust. For the moment, the Japanese space agency (Jaxa) is simply celebrating the success of bringing Hayabusa home.

The re-entry produced a remarkable fireball in the Australian sky. The main spacecraft broke apart in a shower of light. As these bright streaks faded, a single point could be seen heading to the ground. This was the capsule protected against the intense heat generated in the fall by its carbon shield.

It took about an hour to locate the capsule by helicopter, its position tracked by radar and a beacon that was transmitting from inside the canister. It was only when daylight came up on Monday that recovery teams began to approach the capsule.

"We will package the capsule and then send it back by aircraft - it's a special aircraft - from the Woomera range to Tokyo International Airport, to go to our facility, our laboratory, where we will analyse the samples," Yoshiyuki Hasegawa, the associate executive director of Jaxa, told BBC News.

Even now, there is still some uncertainty as to whether the capsule really does contain pieces of Itokawa.

Analysis has shown the Hayabusa spacecraft's capture mechanism malfunctioned at the moment it was supposed to pick up the asteroid rock fragments.

However, Jaxa officials remain confident of success.

They say a lot of dust would have been kicked up when Hayabusa landed on the space rock to make the grab, and some of this material must have found its way inside the probe.

JAXA Hayabusa re-entry image: long exposure

In this long exposure photo released by Japan's Wakayama University Institute for Education on Space, two streaks of the Hayabusa probe, the first spacecraft to complete a round-trip journey to an asteroid, and its capsule streak across the sky near Glendambo in southern Australia as they re-enter the Earth's atmosphere

Picture: AP

NASA Viseo of Hayabusa re-entry at 10,000 KM/hour

JAXA Hayabusa Capsule plunges to Earth after historic visit to asteroid

Cutting across the night sky at more than 27,000 mph, a small Japanese capsule returned to Earth from the surface of an asteroid Sunday and landed in the remote Australian outback.

The Hayabusa mothership breaks apart in the upper atmosphere over Australia, as the re-entry capsule (right) continues its journey toward the landing site. This image is from video captured aboard a NASA DC-8 observer aircraft. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute/University of North Dakota

The 16-inch-wide capsule plunged into the atmosphere over Australia at 1351 GMT (9:51 a.m. EDT) on the second-fastest re-entry of a manmade spacecraft ever attempted.

Streaming video from Australia showed a luminous fireball appear in the sky near the correct position, indicating the Hayabusa craft was on track toward a touchdown in the Woomera Prohibited Area in South Australia around 1411 GMT (10:11 a.m. EDT), or 11:41 p.m. local time.

A fleet of all-terrain vehicles and helicopters were standing by at Woomera, a military installation in the Australian outback. More than 50 representatives of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency joined several dozen Australian workers to recover the Hayabusa capsule.

The recovery teams detected the capsule's beacon signal and a helicopter located the downed craft shortly after landing, according to a message from Hayabusa's official Twitter account.

Officials plan to retrieve the capsule after sunrise in Australia, or some time Sunday evening, U.S. time.

The capsule was programmed to dive into the atmosphere at an angle of approximately 10 degrees, braving temperatures of nearly 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit during the moment of peak heating.

A carbon fiber heat shield was designed to protect the craft from the destructive heat.

The capsule jettisoned a portion of its heat shield and backshell once it reached a point 6 miles above Earth, permitting its parachute to unfurl and slow the craft to a gentle velocity.

Hayabusa's capsule was supposed to jettison two pieces of its heat shield and deploy a parachute 6 miles above Earth. Credit: Akihiro Ikeshita/JAXA

Hayabusa's main spacecraft also plummeted back to Earth just a few miles behind the capsule, but it burned up during re-entry as expected.

The Hayabusa mothership spring-ejected the drum-shaped return capsule at 1051 GMT (6:51 a.m. EDT) as the craft traveled more than 25,000 miles above the planet. Hayabusa put the capsule in a slow spinning motion before separation to keep the uncontrolled container stable and thermally condition its battery.

Japanese officials last communicated with the Hayabusa probe at 1328 GMT (9:28 a.m. EDT) as it passed out of range of ground stations. A rush of applause, smiles and handshakes went through the control room around the same time.

Sunday's fiery return to Earth wrapped up a mission lasting seven years and traversing more than a billion miles across the solar system.

Hayabusa launched in May 2003 and reached asteroid Itokawa in September 2005 for three months of research and daring close approaches to the potato-shaped object. The visit ended with a series of attempts to collect samples from the asteroid, but the spacecraft inadvertently landed on the surface for 30 minutes.

Telemetry analysis after two touchdowns showed Hayabusa likely did not fire a projectile into the asteroid's gravely surface, but Japanese scientists are hopeful light amounts of dust could have moved into the funnel leading to the sample container.

Officials won't know for sure until the capsule is flown back to Japan and moved into a special curation facility at the Sagamihara campus on the outskirts of Tokyo. That could occur as early as Tuesday or Wednesday.

Hayabusa's sample return capsule. Credit: JAXA

"That is the ideal scenario," said Junichiro Kawaguchi, Hayabusa's project manager. "In an off-nominal scenario, recovery itself may take several days or more, so accordingly the return to Japan may be delayed."

Researchers will take their time examining and opening the container.

"Opening the capsule will take place within a few weeks of arrival here," Kawaguchi said in an interview from Sagamihara. "We must take the utmost care to open the capsule. It takes a lot of time to study the samples because they will probably be in fine particles."

Scientists must also distinguish between contamination from Earth and particles from the asteroid, and that could take several months.

Hayabusa missed an opportunity to come home in June 2007, but the probe finally fired its ion propulsion system to begin the journey back to Earth.

The spacecraft was stymied by a major fuel leak, the failure of two-thirds of its attitude control system, the loss of three of its four ion engines, and trouble with its primary battery.

The problems put the mission in doubt many times, and Kawaguchi remained publicly pessimistic about Hayabusa's chances until the final days before re-entry.

"We have been quite lucky in succeeding and continuing this mission," Kawaguchi said last week. "I personally am very proud of the teams, comprised of the engineers and the scientists who continue to do these activities."

"We've just been lucky."

Landed - Japan Itokawa asteroid mission

Japan's Hayabusa probe returns to Earth on Sunday, releasing a capsule into the atmosphere that scientists hope will contain samples from asteroid Itokawa.

If the 40cm-wide conical disc survives the blistering heat of the descent and can deploy a parachute, it should touch down in Australia at about 1400 GMT.

No-one really knows whether Hayabusa succeeded in grabbing samples from Itokawa's surface during a 2005 visit.

Its capture mechanism did not work as designed, analysis has shown.

However, Japanese space agency (Jaxa) officials remain confident.

They believe a lot of dust would have been kicked up when Hayabusa landed on the space rock, and some of this must have found its way inside the probe.

"At the moment of touch-down, Hayabusa collided with the surface and stayed on the surface for 30 minutes, so we believe some material will have found its way into the sample container," senior project team member Professor Hitoshi Kuninaka told BBC News.

If the Hayabusa capsule is confirmed to contain even just dusty fragments from the asteroid, it would represent a scientific first and a remarkable triumph for the Japanese who have had to battle a succession of technical problems.

Although the grab mechanism failed, dust may still have found its way inside

Hayabusa was launched in 2003 and used ion engines to propel itself out to Itokawa, a 500m-long potato-shaped rock which drifts between the orbit of Earth and beyond Mars.

Not long after the mission started, a solar flare damaged the spacecraft, but it was really at its destination that Hayabusa's woes began to mount.

As well as the capture mechanism malfunction, a mini-probe called Minerva that was to have hopped across the asteroid's surface accidentally drifted off into space.

Even on the journey home, the Hayabusa team had to work around communication drop-outs and propulsion glitches.

But each time an issue came up, the scientists and engineers working on the project managed to find an elegant solution.

Now, after one final course correction during the past week, Hayabusa is bound to hit the Earth's atmosphere above Australia.

HAYABUSA'S HIGH-SPEED RETURN

• (1) Three hours before re-entry, sample capsule is released
• (2) At altitude of 200km, probe and capsule encounter atmosphere
• (3) Capsule travels at 12km/s; heat-shield must work at 3,000C
• (4) Main spacecraft has no protection and burns up
• (5) At 10km, capsule dumps shielding; deploys parachute
• (6) Capsule is tracked to landing via beacon and radar

Just a few hours before the spacecraft begins this plunge, it will push out the sample capsule in front of it.

The main spacecraft will be destroyed during the descent, but the container is built to survive the 3,000-degree heat of re-entry.

"The capsule will come into the atmosphere with a very high velocity - 12km/s; and so in order to endure such a high heat input, we need a special heat-shield," said Professor Kuninaka. "Its surface is made of carbon phenolic (resin)."

Assuming it makes it through this test of fire, the capsule will deploy a parachute at an altitude of about 10km. This should bring the conical pod to a gentle stop in the Australian Outback's Woomera Prohibited Range.

Radar tracking and a beacon in the container itself should guide scientists to the drop location.

The requirement to avoid all earthly contamination means the capsule will not immediately be moved from its landing site. The sterile protocols the mission team will follow will not permit the capsule's evacuation and transfer to Japan for a few days.

The container will be delivered to Jaxa's Sagamihara curation facility for analysis. It could be some months before scientists are able to say with confidence that Hayabusa did indeed capture fragments of Itokawa.

"You hope for grams of sample but you can make do with much less than that," observed Dr Michael Zolensky who worked on Nasa's Stardust comet sample-return mission.

"On Stardust, the entire sample return was on the order of thousands of nano-grams. That was thousands of grains, each of which weighed about one nano-gram; and one of those grains you could spend a year studying," he told BBC News.

Such grains would provide new insight into the early history of the Solar System and the formation of the planets more than 4.5 billion years ago.

Professor Trevor Ireland, from the Australian National University, who will get to work on the samples, said no rocks on Earth could provide this information because they had been recycled many times.

"If we look at anything on Earth it has been put through the wringer; it's been messed up by plate-tectonic processes and geochemical processes. So if we want to look at what our Earth was made of, we have to leave Earth. That's the importance of Hayabusa and going to Itokawa."

ASTEROID 25143 ITOKAWA - A 'PILE OF RUBBLE'

Hayabusa asteroid probe faces moment of truth

Following a mishap during its rendezvous with an asteroid in 2005, and other technical problems, the Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa was all but given up for dead.

Miraculously it has been nursed back to life, and it is now hurtling towards Earth, on track to hurl a small but potentially momentous capsule into the Australian outback on Sunday, 13 June.

No one knows whether Hayabusa managed to grab a dust sample when it landed on the asteroid Itokawa. If it did, this would be a first. Even more significantly, the dust will give us clues as to how the Earth formed, as well as insights into how to prevent it being destroyed by an asteroid impact. Find out more in this New Scientist briefing.

Where is Hayabusa now?
At 0900 Japan time today (11 June) the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) announced that Hayabusa was 1,142,550 kilometres from home, following its fourth and final "trajectory correction manoeuvre" on Wednesday. This nudged Hayabusa into the position needed for an 18-kilogram capsule – hopefully containing a sample of asteroid soil – to land at the intended target, the Woomera test tange in South Australia.

How will the Hayabusa land?
Three hours before re-entry, when the spacecraft is 40,000 kilometres from Earth, Hayabusa will release its sample recovery capsule. The capsule will then enter the atmosphere as a fireball, experiencing temperatures of up to 3000 °C, says Hitoshi Kuninaka, a senior member of the Hayabusa project at JAXA.

At an altitude of 10 kilometres, the capsule will deploy a parachute and an antenna that will be used to track it as it lands at Woomera. Once the landing point is confirmed, the capsule will be collected and airfreighted to Japan. Only when it has reached the Sagamihara Curation Center near Tokyo will we know what, if anything, is inside.

What went wrong on Itokawa?
When Hayabusa landed on the asteroid in 2005, it was supposed to fire two metal pellets onto its surface, pushing up material into the cone-shaped sampling capsule for collection. But just after landing, the fuel thruster leaked, causing the spacecraft to enter a "safe" mode, in which all unnecessary systems were shut down.

Given the malfunction, how could the capsule contain any dust?
Because gravity on Itokawa is extremely weak, Hayabusa is likely to have puffed up a plume of dust when it landed. Kuninaka is hopeful that some of this may have entered the capsule, though he admits there is no evidence this has happened.

Michael Zolensky, curator of stratospheric dust at the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science directorate at NASA Johnson Space Centre in Houston, Texas, also predicts that there is something interesting inside the capsule. Even microscopic samples could be "sliced up" and analysed to give information about the chemical composition of asteroids, he says.

JAXA Space probe Hayabusa heads home

Japan is counting down to the homecoming of a space hero next week: not an astronaut but a battered machine limping back from a seven-year odyssey to a distant space rock.

It is hoped the small probe Hayabusa ("Falcon") may have beaten bigger US and European projects to become the first spacecraft to bring home raw material from an asteroid, part of the primeval rubble left over from the making of the solar system.

Hayabusa, which cost 12.7 billion yen (138 million dollars) to develop, is approaching the end of a five-billion-kilometre (three-billion-mile) trek with broken engines, failed posture-adjusting devices and disfunctional batteries.

The spacecraft is due to release a canister expected to contain asteroid dust as it approaches Earth, aiming to land it at the Woomera Test Range in the Australian outback on June 13 -- if all goes well.

Hayabusa itself will be incinerated as it smashes into the atmosphere, prompting devout fans to declare that the falcon will be reborn as a "Phoenix" -- a mythical firebird.

The journey has captured the public imagination, with a computer-graphics movie "Hayabusa back to the Earth" drawing some 150,000 people at planetariums across the nation and proposals that the spacecraft be given a National Honour Award.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), on a special website (http://hayabusa.jaxa.jp/), has received nearly 1,000 messages treating the probe as a human boy and cheering him on in the lonely, difficult journey.

"What's special to Hayabusa is it has enthusiastic fans. I believe ordinary people love it because it tried what is unprecedented," JAXA associate professor Makoto Yoshikawa, told AFP.

The car-size probe with solar paddles has already become the world's first spacecraft to land on and lift off a celestial body other than the moon after it made a rendezvous with the potato-shaped asteroid Itokawa.

JAXA Akatsuki: Pale Blue Island Earth

Two Japanese spacecraft, one headed to Venus and another limping home from an asteroid, have beamed home snapshots of Earth that reveal our planet in different hues amid a sea of stars.

The latest photos of Earth come from Japan's brand new Venus Climate Orbiter Akatsuki and the Hayabusa asteroid probe.

Akatsuki launched May 20 alongside a novel solar sail vehicle and other smaller payloads to begin a six-month trek toward the second planet from the sun.

Hayabusa is returning to Earth from the asteroid Itokawa, which it visited in late 2005 and is due to land in Australia in June.

The Technicolor Earth
The photos of Earth from space by Akatsuki reveal a stunning crescent as the planet appeared to the probe's ultraviolet and infrared cameras.

In ultraviolet, the Earth appears as a dazzling blue sliver, while the same crescent has a vibrant orange hue in infrared. Akatsuki (which means "Dawn" in Japanese) was flying about 155,342 miles (250,000 km) from Earth when it photographed the planet.

Akatsuki also used its long-wave infrared camera to take a snapshot of the entire Earth, though the planet may be unrecognizable to the uninitiated. Earth's trademark blue oceans and white clouds are rendered only in black and white.

Japan's Akatsuki mission is expected to observe Venus in unprecedented detail to study its ever-present clouds and hidden surface. The spacecraft is expected to reach Venus in December and spent two years studying the planet.

The IKAROS solar sail vehicle also launched with the Akatsuki probe and will make a pit stop at Venus before heading off to the far side of the sun. Both spacecraft are doing well, JAXA officials said.