The other day, my advisor said,
"I guess that a lot of people are eliciting about the victory."
Of course, he was saying about World cup. These days, every body are trying to see the game on time. In order to avoid students going outside of schools, some high schools prepare large screen to see the World Cup. On the other hand, I had to add one more thing, which Japanese are inspired.
The other day, an artificial satellite named "HAYABUSA" finished seven-years travel. The mission started 7 years ago. The satellite go to a small planet "ITOKAWA", which was named after a pioneer of rocket engineering in Japan.
Hayabusa at Itokawa's surface
Hayabusa was launched on 9 May 2003. It arrived at Itokawa in mid-September 2005. After arriving at Itokawa, Hayabusa measured the asteroid's shape, spin, topography, colour, composition, gravity. In November 2005, it landed on the asteroid and attempted to collect samples.
Hayabusa introduction with English narrations and captions
After HAYABUSA come back to Earth, the spece craft burned out except for a chamber of the samples. It is not clear whether the sampling mechanism worked as intended. Nevertheless, there is a high probability that some dust was trapped in the sampling chamber during contact with the asteroid, so the chamber was sealed, and the spacecraft returned to Earth on 13 June, 2010.
The scientists from Japan have already retrieved the chamber which landed on a desert of Australia. Currently, scientist of JAXA(Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) are preparing for opening the chamber.
http://twitpic.com/1wr5zq
link to the chamber after landing
If the sample was collected, the success would be the second achievement since Apollo project which human being could bring back samples from outside of the Earth. Though few people were pay attention to the start of this mission, a lot of people were looking forward to "the return of HAYABUSA". Until its come back, HAYABUSA met a lot of trouble. The story of HAYABUSA also made people fascinated.
This is the picture which was taken by HAYABUSA just before it burn out.
Imagine. The instrument work outside of the Earth for several years alone. This is its last job. I guess no one can stop your tear.
A vide of final scene of HAYABUSA is available in a website of National Geographic.
If you were interested in the advancement of HAYABUSA, an English blog is available in the website of NASA.
