- Hayabusa sample container – ready for opening! Credit: JAXA
- Hayabusa specialists ready return sample container for opening.
Hopes are high that the opening of a returned-to-Earth sample capsule does contain bits of an asteroid.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Hayabusa capsule returned to Earth on June 13th, parachuting down in Woomera, Australia. Once the container was recovered after some seven years of space travel it was brought to a curation facility at the Sagamihara Campus in Japan for inspection and disassembly.
The curation center is a facility for sample retrieving, observation and distribution.
This week, the first steps in opening the sample container have begun. JAXA officials note that it will take one week to complete the careful, step-by-step opening of the container.
According to Coalition sources close to the inspection of the capsule, the Hayabusa project team has detected some gas in the sample canister. That could be the result of hydrazine or leaked propellant when the Hayabusa spacecraft made contact with asteroid Itokowa. That flow of gas may well have carried with it tiny samples of the space rock.
Word from Japan is that the canister was found to be perfectly sealed. There is increased possibility, according to one observer, that the canister does carry dust particles of the asteroid.
Note: Special thanks to Toshiki Hasegawa and the JAXA/Hayabusa team.
By Leonard David