"The Hayabusa, formerly known as MUSES-C for Mu Space Engineering Spacecraft C, was launched on 9 May 2003 and rendezvoused with Itokawa in mid-September 2005. After arriving at Itokawa, Hayabusa studied the asteroid's shape, spin, topography, colour, composition, density, and history. In November 2005, it landed on the asteroid and attempted to collect samples but it is not clear whether the sampling mechanism worked as intended. Nevertheless, there is a high probability that some dust was trapped in the sampling chamber during contact with the asteroid, so the chamber was sealed, and the spacecraft returned to Earth on 13 June, 2010."- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayabusa
Hayabusa, appropriately named after the falcon, was an amazing project from the outset. One can hardly imagine firing a relatively miniscule probe to travel that distance, rendezvous with an asteroid, itself in the cosmic scale of things minute, touch down on it not once but twice with "pin-point precision", and then return spot on target after a seven year trip across billions of miles to deliver by parachute a small precious canister containing, scientists hope, what might be a little sample of "star-dust" to the Australian outback. Hayabusa, its mission accomplished, then disintegrated in a blazing ball of fire on re-entry in one final act of glory.
Hayabusa utilized robotic precision landing and hazard avoidance technology that we can only marvel at. The asteroid explorer was once given up for dead and even suffered some faults but has now returned its cargo safely home. The guidance algorithms were astonishing. It boggles the mind. Quite apart from its scientific mission, whether successful or not, just the achievement of going that distance and then to return with such precision is a technological wonder in itself.
NASA's Edward J Weiler once said, speaking about landing a spacecraft on the far larger Mars, that. "Doing something to that accuracy is like trying to hit a hole-in-one, but you tee off in Washington and hit the ball 10,000 miles and hit the hole-in-one in Sydney, Australia… and you have to remember -- that hole is moving." Hayabusa's mission was so much more precise. The asteroid Itokawa by comparison to Mars is but a relative speck of interplanetary debris only 535 × 294 × 209 m in size! Scientists have logged another remarkable achievement of human curiosity and endeavor in the record books of history.
"We all thought the mission was over more than once," Andrew Cheng of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland said. "But unbelievably, they managed to find a way to carry on. I guess that's the samurai spirit."
Pondering the story of Hayabusa I am mindful of the words of the Psalmist who in sheer awe of Divine Endeavour exclaimed...
"I will praise Thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Thy works, and that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from Thee when I was made in secret, and intricately wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being imperfect; and in Thy book all my members were written, which in continuity were fashioned, when as yet there were none of them." (Psa 139:13-16 KJ21)
oOo
See the report in AOLNews: http://www.aolnews.com/science/article/a-little-dust-will-make-japans-hayabusa-spaceships-trip-worthwhile/19511547
More about the Asteroid Itokawa at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/25143_Itokawa
©Colin G Garvie HomePage: http://www.garvies.co.za
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