Post by glactus on Dec 2, 2011 3:57:50 GMT
Hayabusa was an unmanned spacecraft developed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency to return a sample of material from a small near-Earth asteroid named 25143 Itokawa to Earth for further analysis.
The Hayabusa spacecraft
It was the first attempt by Japan to send a completely automated craft to land on an asteroid and, as you can imagine, software had to have specialized input to achieve all functions precisely and correctly. To do this, the computers were programmed to talk to each other in all phases of the operation.
Hayabusa arriving at asteroid
The Japanese space agency lost contact with the spacecraft for some time and did not know if it actually arrived at the asteroid let alone land on it and collect the samples visualized, and to their complete surprise Hayabusa contacted command control to tell them not to worry, "I am in good shape and has completed your commands."
Hayabusa landing on asteroid
Hayabusa rendezvoused with Itokawa in mid-September 2005. After arriving at Itokawa, Hayabusa studied the asteroid's shape, spin, topography, colour, composition, density, and history for two months.
Then In November 2005, it landed on the asteroid and collected samples in the form of tiny grains of asteroidal material, which were returned to Earth aboard the spacecraft on 13 June 2010.
This was a fantastic performance by the Japanese space agency.
To see 4 minute and 24 second video of Hayabusa just click on the link below. Has sound. Full screen option bottom right.
www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=AHhb6KKbvJE
Credits: These are Japanese Space Agency images
Text by Wikipedia/Glactus
Video by YouTube
The Hayabusa spacecraft
It was the first attempt by Japan to send a completely automated craft to land on an asteroid and, as you can imagine, software had to have specialized input to achieve all functions precisely and correctly. To do this, the computers were programmed to talk to each other in all phases of the operation.
Hayabusa arriving at asteroid
The Japanese space agency lost contact with the spacecraft for some time and did not know if it actually arrived at the asteroid let alone land on it and collect the samples visualized, and to their complete surprise Hayabusa contacted command control to tell them not to worry, "I am in good shape and has completed your commands."
Hayabusa landing on asteroid
Hayabusa rendezvoused with Itokawa in mid-September 2005. After arriving at Itokawa, Hayabusa studied the asteroid's shape, spin, topography, colour, composition, density, and history for two months.
Then In November 2005, it landed on the asteroid and collected samples in the form of tiny grains of asteroidal material, which were returned to Earth aboard the spacecraft on 13 June 2010.
This was a fantastic performance by the Japanese space agency.
To see 4 minute and 24 second video of Hayabusa just click on the link below. Has sound. Full screen option bottom right.
www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=AHhb6KKbvJE
Credits: These are Japanese Space Agency images
Text by Wikipedia/Glactus
Video by YouTube