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Japanese Hayabusa probe returns from asteroid Itokawa

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KimiNewt

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Japan's little spacecraft that could returned to Earth, putting on quite a show over the Australian outback, making a fiery reentry. Hayabusa returned around 10 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT) in the Woomera Prohibited Area of South Australia. In the video you'll see a little speck of light ahead of the falling debris: that’s the sample return canister with, hopefully, some precious goods aboard – samples from asteroid Itokawa. The canister separated about three hours before reaching Earth, and returned to Earth via parachute. The canister has been recovered, and will be taken to Japan where scientists will open it to find out if there is anything inside.

The return was monitored scientists from around the world, including a NASA crew on aboard a DC-8 airplane who took the video footage.
Click to expand...
http://www.universetoday.com/2010/06/13/hayabusa-returns/

Reentry video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-Xp_-_gLTA (actual return capsule is the white dot).

For whoever isn't familiar: Hayabusa is a JAXA probe sent over seven years ago to the asteroid 25143 Itokawa, it was plagued by many problems.

For example, the "hopper" lander failed, and they couldn't even scoop up the bits of land they wanted, but they are hoping that some dust got stuck in the chamber and that's what they'll analyse. (For more info, Wikipedia is always helpful)

TKY201006130301.jpg

20100613-787567-1-L.jpg


EDIT: NHK report (another video)

Last picture (cleaned up) from the probe of Earth:
2vki103.png
 
Pretty amazing pictures right here.

Even if the entire mission was crazy ass ideas from the begining and I still cannot believe what this probe achieved: I'm afraid the result will be considered as an overall failure :(
 
Pretty amazing that they sent this thing into space for like 7 years and it returns home safely.
 
ElectricBlue187 said:
what is the story?
Click to expand...

It was supposed to collect dust from an asteroid, then land a probe on it and collect sample.

But the landing probe never made it so they hope some asteroid dust got stuck into the main collector container.

They will open it and see what it catched up there.
 
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