Bad News from Hayabusa
Comments(4)
The attempt yesterday to land Hayabusa on asteroid Itokawa did not take place, the reason why is unclear. Apparently the spacecraft made it no closer than 17 meters to the asteroid and then started moving away. JAXA officials are not sure what happened and if another attempt will be made.
I was watching video from the control room and keeping tabs on the blog. I knew something was up when the blog stopped updating and the body language in the control room was not exactly jovial; it was easy to see the tension levels were high.
Reuters seems to be trying to make a lot of the idea that a failure would look bad in light of the Chinese successes in putting astronauts in orbit. Maybe, but I think this is an apples and oranges scenario. These are two very different types of missions with very different technical challenges and requirements. JAXA is to be applauded for what they have accomplished in the mission so far. The intellectual gains alone have made the mission a success to some degree, besides, the mission isn’t over….yet.
I agree with with you Tom…watch and wait , hopefully for some good news,
The advances made, excellent…..they should view the strides in the field that they have made as the true measure of success.
I agree, Tom. The mission just to get there was an awesome accomplishment. One must keep in mind that all space exploration is an uncharted sea with high-risk implications. The United States has a sad history of far more serious failures – even on the ground. It needs to be looked at in the light of being a learning experience. Many successes have come form this mission despite it’s apparent partial failure.
I’m going to agree too. Getting to an asteroid using ion thrusters and then haniging off its tail while taking stunning images is a might good achievement, even if they don’t get samples back. But as you say, the mission isn’t over yet.
Japan’s space program is still young, with relatively few launches. To accomplish this (even if the sample return fails) after such little experience is quite a feat.