Japan space agency unveils Hayabusa-2 (MUSES-C) asteroid hunting probe

Artist's impression of Hayabusa (MUSES-C) in proximity to Itokawa's surface.

Japanese space scientists have unveiled the asteroid hunting space probe they hope to launch later this year on a mission to mine a celestial body.

The probe, named Hayabusa-2, is expected to be flung into space on a rocket for a mammoth four year voyage to the unpoetically-named 1999JU3 asteroid.

When it gets there, some time in 2018, it will release a powerful cannon which will fire a metal bullet at the asteroid's barren crust, once the probe itself has scuttled to safety on the far side of the rock.

It will then return to scoop up material uncovered by the cannon blast.

If all goes well, these pristine asteroid samples will be returned to Earth by the time Tokyo hosts the Olympic Games in 2020.

At a weekend press conference, Hitoshi Kuninaka, project leader at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said he and his team were readying to redouble their efforts for this "new voyage".

"I'm grateful as the new asteroid probe is now nearly complete," he said, according to Jiji Press.

The probe is the successor to JAXA's first asteroid explorer, Hayabusa—the Japanese term for falcon—which returned to earth in 2010 with dust samples after a trouble-plagued seven-year mission.

The spherical 1999JU3 asteroid, which is around a kilometre (half a mile) across, contains significantly more organic matter and water than the potato-shaped rock previously studied by the original Hayabusa.

Analysing this valuable cosmic material could shed light on the mysteries surrounding the solar system and its origins 4.6 billion years ago.

Scientists at JAXA say Hayabusa-2 will build on the work of its predecessor, which was only able to collect surface dust samples that could have been altered by years of exposure to various forms of energy encountered in space.

Despite various setbacks during its epic seven-year journey, including intermittent loss of communication and damage to its motors, the first Hayabasa was hailed as a triumph of science when it returned to Earth.

JAXA's work guiding the craft back to terra firma made it a source of pride for Japan, even inspiring several Japanese feature films.

Kuninaka said there were a number of possible complications and pitfalls that could await Hayabusa-2.

"Of course, I hope things will go smoothly," said Kuninaka.

"We have had many difficulties in the process of developing the new asteroid probe. Space is never an easy place," he said.

Asteroids are believed to retain materials unchanged from the solar system's earliest days, unlike scorched remains such as meteorites or materials on Earth which have been transformed through pressure and heat.

The 1999JU3 asteroid was selected in part because of its make-up and also because of its relative accessibility.

Yearlong Space Station Crew Unveils Mission Patch for 2015 Launch

This commemorative patch represents the historic, first yearlong expedition to the International Space Station.

Credit: AB Emblem

Scott Kelly is seven months and 15 days from becoming the first NASA astronaut to spend a year in space.

Well, maybe not a full year, at least based on the currently published schedules.

Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail "Misha" Kornienko are slated to launch to the International Space Station on March 28, 2015 for the first yearlong expedition aboard the orbiting laboratory. They are scheduled to return to Earth 346 days later – 19 days shy of an entire year – on March 7, 2016.

"I made a deal with the station program, they'll extend that to make it a whole year, but that doesn't show up on paper yet," Kelly told reporters in a recent interview.

"It better be [a full year], although I could be regretting that when March 7 rolls around and I think I could be home."

Full year or not, Kelly and Kornienko's expedition will set the record for the space station's longest mission in its 15-year history. Most crew members spend about five and a half months working and living on the outpost.

Only four people, all of them cosmonauts, have remained in orbit longer than a year during stays onboard the former Russian Mir space station.

During their 12 months in space, Kelly and Kornienko will be joined by a rotating contingent of four other astronauts and cosmonauts to conduct hundreds of experiments and to gather data to better prepare future crews for missions beyond Earth orbit, such as to Mars.

First though, Kelly and Kornienko have had to be prepare to spend a year off the planet. The two were appointed to the long-duration flight in 2012 and have been in training for the expedition since.

It has only been recently though, that Kelly has started to notice the days ticking down to their launch.

"As far the flight coming up quickly, I think it's just starting to feel that way for me," he told reporters.

"The backup [crew] launch flow is August through September, which culminates with the Expedition 41 launch because I am [flight engineer Butch Wilmore's] backup."

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly is pictured during a training session at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

Credit: NASAV

"Then I am back in Houston for the month of October, in Russia in November, Japan in December, January back in Houston, February in Russia and then, space. So even though it is pretty much seven months away, it's going to happen pretty quick," Kelly observed.

At the 12 month mark in March, Kelly began a countdown with daily Twitter updates. Those posts have dropped off a bit since as the pace of preparations have picked up, and as Kelly's given thought to the effect of counting down, or up.

"I do recognize there is a risk to counting down, well, in this case, counting down isn't that risky, but counting the number of days until the end of the flight, or I was thinking of counting up days, a countdown [to launch] and then a count-up, there is obviously some risk in that as it could make the time seem to go by much more slowly," he said. "Maybe I will start counting up and then quit after awhile."

There are other ways Kelly might mark one year in space. He joked about not shaving for the length of his stay, but quickly abandoned that idea.

"All joking aside, I have considered taking pictures of the same spots on the Earth, as best as possible, to capture the changes over the period of a year. You know, on each continent, one spot," he explained.

Both he and Kornienko will visually mark the year another way, too. Borrowing a long-standing spaceflight tradition, the two now have their own commemorative mission patch to mark their yearlong journey.

"There is a big number one and it says 'Year in Space' and in Russian and English are Misha's and my names," Kelly said, describing the recently revealed emblem.

"There is a picture of the space station over the Earth with the station going around the Earth and then the Earth going around the sun."

ISRO: India unveils its astronaut crew capsule, plans test launch

India, hoping to become the fourth nation to send humans into space, has unveiled a key element in the effort, an indigenously manufactured astronaut capsule.

The country's space agency has displayed a prototype of its first crew capsule module designed to carry two people into low Earth orbit.

The Indian Space Research Organization announced plans to send the test prototype into orbit with the first experimental flight of the country's latest rocket, the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark III.

Capable of putting 10 tons of payload into a low-Earth orbit, it could launch in May or June from Sriharikota spaceport on the coast of the Bay of Bengal, the agency said.

Currently only the United States, Russia and China have accomplished the feat of putting humans into Earth orbit.

The Indian space agency said it has decided on the test flight even though the government has yet to grant approval and funding for a human space-flight program.

"We thought it better to [go ahead to] gain some confidence in the design of our crew module," said Sundaram Ramakrishnan, director of ISRO's Vikram Sarabhai Space Center in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala.

The capsule, manufactured by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, is intended to carry two or three astronauts into a low-Earth orbit on a weeklong mission.

ESA unveils Mars sample return container - video

The container is engineered to carry 11 receptacles, store them under 14˚F (-10˚C), and weigh less than 11lbs (5kg). It will land on Mars with a sample providing rover. When it is filled, it will launch and rendezvous with a return-trip spacecraft.

Credit: ESA

NASA, Hubble's Deepest View Of Universe Unveils Never-Before-Seen Galaxies

The image was taken by the HUDF09 team, which has made it available for research by astronomers worldwide.

The photo was taken with the new WFC3/infrared camera on Hubble in late August 2009, during a total of four days of pointing for 173,000 seconds of total exposure time.

The new Wide Field Camera 3 aboard the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has taken the deepest image yet of the Universe in near-infrared light.

The faintest and reddest objects in the image are likely the oldest galaxies ever identified, having formed between only 600-900 million years after the Big Bang.

In 2004, Hubble created the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF), the deepest visible-light image of the Universe, and now, with its brand-new camera, Hubble is seeing even farther. This image was taken in the same region as the visible HUDF, but is taken at longer wavelengths.

Hubble's newly installed Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) collects light from near-infrared wavelengths and therefore looks even farther back towards the Big Bang, because the light from hot young stars in these very distant galaxies is stretched out of the ultraviolet and visible regions of the spectrum into near-infrared wavelengths by the expansion of the Universe.

This new deep view also provides insights into how galaxies grew in their formative years early in the Universe's history.

A boon to astronomers worldwide, the new WFC3 data - taken by the HUDF09 team - have set a multitude of teams to work, furiously searching for the most distant galaxies yet discovered. In just three months, twelve scientific papers on these new data have been submitted.

The image was taken by the HUDF09 team, which has made it available for research by astronomers worldwide. The photo was taken with the new WFC3/infrared camera on Hubble in late August 2009, during a total of four days of pointing for 173 000 seconds of total exposure time.

Infrared light is invisible to the human eye and therefore does not have colours that can be perceived. The representation is "natural" in that shorter infrared wavelengths are represented as blue and the longer wavelengths as red. The faintest objects are about one billion times fainter than the dimmest visible objects seen with the naked eye.

These Hubble observations are blazing a trail for Hubble's successor, the NASA/ESA James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which will look even farther into the Universe than Hubble, at infrared wavelengths. The launch of JWST is planned for 2014.