The Hayabusa mission was launched in 2003 by the Japanese space mission to reach the asteroid ,Itokawa.It is an irregularly-shaped rock between Earth and Mars.Hyabusa used chemical-fueled rocket engine and additional ion engines.It uses microwave technology which moves the spacecraft by heating xenon gas.
The hayabusa nearly traveled 1.25 billion miles to reach Itokawa.
Itokawa is compared to an inflated baked potato about a 3rd of a mile long which has no gravitational pull.
The goal of the spaceship, Hayabusa is to touch the Itokawa thereby picking up a sample and flying off.But the asteroid was spinning which made it difficult for the Hayabusa to perform its work.
The spacecraft,Hayabusa carried an instrument akin to a pellet gun which has been designed to fire in to the asteroids silicon and iron based rocks.Then the Hyabusa has to snag some of the flakes from the rock that has been produced due to firing.
The Hayabusa landed on Itokawa and stayed there for 30 minutes but unfortunately the pellet gun did not fire.
But researchers believe that some asteroid dust was pulled in to the sample box.But due to technical fault in the Hyabusa ,the researches lost its signal and after 16 months, they got the full control of the spacecraft.
Now Hayabusa is back on the earth and scientist are ready for examining the debris collected by it.They will need to use a powerful scanning electron microscope to determine whether any dust particles were collected and the good news is that the new Prime Minister of Japan Mr Naoto Kan has announced funds to raise another Hayabusa
The hayabusa nearly traveled 1.25 billion miles to reach Itokawa.
Itokawa is compared to an inflated baked potato about a 3rd of a mile long which has no gravitational pull.
The goal of the spaceship, Hayabusa is to touch the Itokawa thereby picking up a sample and flying off.But the asteroid was spinning which made it difficult for the Hayabusa to perform its work.
The spacecraft,Hayabusa carried an instrument akin to a pellet gun which has been designed to fire in to the asteroids silicon and iron based rocks.Then the Hyabusa has to snag some of the flakes from the rock that has been produced due to firing.
The Hayabusa landed on Itokawa and stayed there for 30 minutes but unfortunately the pellet gun did not fire.
But researchers believe that some asteroid dust was pulled in to the sample box.But due to technical fault in the Hyabusa ,the researches lost its signal and after 16 months, they got the full control of the spacecraft.
Now Hayabusa is back on the earth and scientist are ready for examining the debris collected by it.They will need to use a powerful scanning electron microscope to determine whether any dust particles were collected and the good news is that the new Prime Minister of Japan Mr Naoto Kan has announced funds to raise another Hayabusa
