Hayabusa2 launches - tonight!

[K^2]

Three rovers?! How the hell did they cram them in the ship?

With tweezers.

[Scotius]

Didn't really know where to put it... so I'll just post it here.

PROCYON, the microsatellite that launched with Hayabusa 2 and was bound to encounter the first binary asteroid ever discover (2000 DP107) in May 2016 won't make it to its destination, after a piece of metal stuck between two grids rendered its ion engine useless in March. The satellite will continue its scientific measurements and technological demonstrations as it heads to encounter Earth in December.

What? Where did that come from? Probe encountered a piece of space junk, or someone was working on it with a hammer and pliers?

[Frida Space]

What? Where did that come from? Probe encountered a piece of space junk, or someone was working on it with a hammer and pliers?

My guess is that it fell off from something on the probe itself, but the reports don't say anything else other than "a piece of metal got stuck in the ion engine"

[Kryten]

Proposals are now being taken for a permanent name for the target asteroid;

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2015/07221426-name-hayabusa2s-asteroid.html

[Guest]

With tweezers.

Hammers*

[The Yellow Dart]

Proposals are now being taken for a permanent name for the target asteroid;

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2015/07221426-name-hayabusa2s-asteroid.html

Awesome! Thanks for the info! Just sent off my suggestion.

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Also, FYI, that copper plate shaped charge sounds exactly like the P-IEDs that we learned about in Iraq. Congrats Japan on your super sweet space bomb!

[MoeKitsune]

Sent mine. The japanese text confused me. My submission was Perseus.

Edited July 24, 2015 by TheJewelOfJool

[Frida Space]

Just a quick update: On September 1st-2nd, JAXA's Hayabusa 2 completed 2 manoeuvres for a total of 12 hours to correct its trajectory that will bring the probe to perform an Earth gravity assist by December of this year.

This is Hayabusa's, Earth's and 1999 JU3's positions as of Sept 1, 2015:

In case you missed them, these are the most recent Hayabusa 2 manoeuvres:

- March 3-March 20: 409 hours

- June 2-June 7, 0:25 JST: 102 hours

Total Delta-V: 60 m/s

Correction Manoeuvre:

- Sept 1-Sept 2: 12 hours

Total: 523 hours -- almost 22 days! As you probably can tell, Hayabusa 2 has an ion propulsion system (with 4 engines).

[Scotius]

Compared to RL ion engines, snails are blisteringly fast

[Frida Space]

At 10:07 UTC Dec 3, Hayabusa 2 will fly 2100 km above the Pacific Ocean, exactly one year after it was launched. The flyby will increase its heliocentric speed from 30.3 to 31.9 km/s. Here are a few schematics of the trajectories:

[IMG]http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-sLOKxFx_URI/VlNqDk5FcxI/AAAAAAAAGQs/DqQRppgDZA8/s1600/swing_pic_02.png[/IMG]
[IMG]http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_jxQAONf3HU/VlNqDUf2zxI/AAAAAAAAGQo/KTZ7GcE_uDM/s1600/swing_pic_03.png[/IMG]

And this cool GIF of the Earth-Moon system as seen a few days ago by Hayabusa:

[IMG]http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BiDXim3E51Q/VlNqF7WQZGI/AAAAAAAAGRA/8cZuPiedw7I/s1600/TIR_Earth-Moon_20151110-13r1.gif[/IMG]

On that same day, another Japanese probe, launched with Hayabusa, is going to flyby the Earth as well. It's the experimental ion-powered Procyon mission, heading to the binary asteroid 2000 DP107. Due to an engine failure, the probe won't be able to reach its asteroid, however all other systems are operating just fine and taking wonderful images such as these:

[IMG]http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8jfH2jar1pI/VlNpbns_lvI/AAAAAAAAGQg/v_qrDthafJs/s1600/12240207_1630471093858298_486711562660513442_o.png[/IMG]

Recently, Procyon's cameras even imaged Rosetta's comet:

[IMG]http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OpR_RfpbC6g/Vi4CdIpOn0I/AAAAAAAAGBo/AEIyJvo_2k0/s1600/pic-news151014_001.jpg[/IMG]

Hayabusa 2 is instead heading towards 1999 JU3, which in the meanwhile has been named "Ryugu" via an online contest.

I found a cool real time simulator of Hayabusa2's position ([URL="http://www.lizard-tail.com/isana/hayabusa2/misc/swingby/"]click here[/URL]).

[fredinno]

[quote name='Slam_Jones']Just watched the video, and that is some damn fine engineering. Amazing how much they can fit onto such a tiny craft.[/QUOTE]

It's because they are tiny, and the gravity of the asteroid is so low. Doing this on a Galilean Moon would mean a 5 ton spacecraft (at least)

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[quote name='Tommygun']Wow, they do have a lot crammed into it, it's even armed with an anti-tank missile.[/QUOTE]

I thought that was an impactor.