(vIndianz, June 9, 2010): Japan is eagerly awaiting the home coming of Hayabusa, the space probe after a seven year odyssey intended to collect samples from the Asteroid named 25143 Itokawa, Japanese Space Agency (Jaxa) has announced that Hayabusa had successfully completed its third Trajectory Correction Maneuver (TCM), and is now been placed on a course for landing in the south-central Australian outback at Woomera.
Launched on May 9, 2003, Hayabusa, had approached the 540-metre-wide Asteroid in September 2005. Asteroid Itokawa was discovered in 1998 and named after a Japanese scientist Hideo Itokawa, a pioneer of the Japanese space program nicknamed “Dr Rocket”. After arriving at Itokawa, it studied the Asteroid’s shape, texture and composition and even attempted to collect the sample, but failed to do so.
According to a Physorg.com report, the spacecraft was expected to depart by the end of 2005. But unfortunately, Hayabusa (pictured alongside is an artist’s impression of Hayabusa in proximity to Itokawa’s surface) was hit by a series of technical troubles. It went out of control owing to fuel leakage and thus the operators in Japan were unable to control the spacecraft. But again when the ground control restored communication it was too late for the spacecraft to enter the orbit for its return and had to wait for three years until the position of earth and Asteroid became ideal. Though the Hayabusa’s chemical propellant tanks got empty, the engineers had to use the spacecraft’s ion engines to guide the spacecraft home. Since the ion thrusters have low acceleration, each trajectory correction has taken longer than it would have done with the chemical engines.
Still it remains doubtful whether the probe managed to grab any material from Itokawa; scientists will have to open the capsule to find out. Even if Hayabusa failed to grab large samples at Itokawa, scientists hope the capsule may still contain small residues from the asteroid that could be analyzed. The spacecraft now lies within about 3,600,000km of our planet.
The journey has captured immense public attention. There are also proposals that the spacecraft be given a National Honour Award. It is hoped that Hayabusa (meaning Falcon in Japanese) can overcome all the troubles and can achieve a safe landing.
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