- Earth return of Japan’s Hayabusa asteroid probe and release of its sample capsule.
Japan’s asteroid explorer, the Hayabusa spacecraft, is on track for a June 13 reentry into the Woomera Test Range in South Australia.
Scientists at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) have announced that the probe has successfully completed a major trajectory correction maneuver.
That tweak to its flight path means Hayabusa was guided from Earth’s outer rim toward its final Woomera landing spot. A final maneuver on June 9 will micro-adjust the spacecraft for the plunge into a targeted patch of Woomera desert.
Hayabusa was lofted into space over seven years ago, back on May 9, 2003.
In 2005, the spacecraft surveyed and landed upon asteroid 25143 Itokawa. During some three months of scientific operation at the asteroid, two sampling runs were made. The probe may have snagged bits of the space rock – but it is not clear if this duty was accomplished.
A robotic equivalent to Apollo 13
Once departing the asteroid, Hayabusa ground controllers have had to overcome a daunting series of technical hurdles to get the probe steered back to Earth. Ion engine woes, busted control hardware, a fuel leak, as well as loss of radio link with the craft.
Indeed, in many ways, Hayabusa has been a robotic equivalent of NASA’s Apollo 13 mission.
But now Hayabusa is nearly home.
On June 13 it will become an artificial meteor, streaking across the sky toward Australia and deliver a reentry capsule that will parachute down to terra firma.
NASA is sponsoring a Hayabusa Re-Entry Multi-instrument Aircraft Campaign, one that uses the space agency’s DC-8 Airborne Laboratory. On Hayabusa’s reentry day, the aircraft and scientists onboard will use specialized equipment to monitor the spacecraft’s reentry and how well the reentry capsule withstands its heroic and meteoric drop into Australia.
The mission has been a tribute to tenacity.
Will it be carrying pieces of asteroid Itokawa? Time will tell.
By Leonard David