Japanese space probe about to set down on asteroid, hopes to return sample

[NNadir]

Stunning imagery is being returned by Japan's Hayabusa space probe as it draws closer to its celestial target: asteroid Itokawa.


Now just a few miles distant from the space rock, the spacecraft is poised for an historic attempt to collect and return a specimen to Earth from such an object. Imagery from Hayabusa is being used by Japanese scientists to target potential touchdown sites on the rocky world.


Hayabusa was rocketed into space from Japan's Kagoshima Space Center on May 9, 2003 and is a project of that country's Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS), a space science research division arm of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). Hayabusa arrived at its exploration target, near Earth asteroid Itokawa, on September 12, propelled there via ion engines and an Earth swing-by to put the probe on a heading toward Itokawa.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20051103/sc_space/japanshayabusaclosesinonasteroidlandingsite

I love this stuff. In these dire times, these robots still represent a higher aim for humanity.

The craft is technologically interesting as it is propelled by an ion propulsion engine.

[electropop]

1. Way cool. Thanks.

:-)

[bemildred]

2. That looks like a big lump of dust and rubble.

Interesting pic; and props to the Japanese for doing this.

[mirandapriestly]

3. Didn't the U.S. get samples from an asteroid a while ago?

or maybe just pictures, I don't remember. What ever happened to that?

[bemildred]

4. We dropped a probe on it and got pitchers, spectra, etc. IIRC. nt

[NNadir]

5. We collected dust from a comet in a gel and returned it to earth.

The spacecraft was badly damaged during re-entry and I believe the samples were a total loss.