On November 23, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) announced that their spacecraft Hayabusa successfully landed on the asteroid Itokawa, located nearly 300 million kilometers from Earth. However, the spacecraft was unable to collect samples.
 |
Asteroid Itokawa |
On November 20, JAXA reported that Hayabusa had failed in its attempt to land on the surface of asteroid Itokawa. However, after analyzing the data, the agency confirmed that Hayabusa had landed on the surface of Itokawa for approximately 30 minutes but was unable to collect samples. The landing site was off by about 30 meters from the intended location. Subsequently, the spacecraft drifted away from the asteroid.
According to JAXA spokesperson Seiji Koyama, officials are still analyzing the data. Tomorrow, they will decide whether to direct the spacecraft for a second landing attempt on the asteroid the following day. The spacecraft has encountered a series of issues recently: a landing rehearsal was canceled earlier in November when it could not find a landing site, a small robot deployed by the spacecraft on Itokawa went missing, and one of the three gyroscopes had problems but has since been fixed.
If this mission is successful, it will mark the first time material from an asteroid has been brought back to Earth. Collecting samples from the asteroid will aid scientists in uncovering secrets about the formation mechanisms of the solar system. Information about the asteroid’s structure is also significant as it will help humanity address asteroids that may collide with Earth in the future.
Scientists believe that the surfaces of asteroids have remained largely unchanged for millennia, unlike larger celestial bodies such as Earth and the Moon. A NASA spacecraft collected data for two weeks from the asteroid Eros in 2001; however, it did not return samples to Earth.
Hayabusa was launched in May 2003 with a budget of $100 million and is set to begin its journey back to Earth in early December. It is scheduled to return and land in Australia in June 2007. The asteroid Itokawa is named after Hideo Itokawa, the father of Japan’s rocket science. Itokawa orbits between Earth and the Sun, measuring 690 meters in length and 300 meters in width, with a gravitational force 1/100,000 that of Earth’s. This makes landing on the surface of Itokawa particularly challenging.
Minh Sơn (sourced from AP, AFP, Reuters)
