[meteorite-list] Hayabusa Returns - Asteroid secrets come down to earth

[Jeff Kuyken]

Hi all,

This first report came through from the Sydney Morning Herald about 20 mins 
ago.

Cheers,

Jeff



http://www.smh.com.au/national/asteroid-secrets-come-down-to-earth-20100613-y64j.html

Asteroid secrets come down to earth DEBORAH SMITH SCIENCE EDITOR

June 14, 2010

THE Falcon became a fiery phoenix last night.

After a seven-year odyssey in space, the unmanned Japanese spacecraft 
Hayabusa, or Falcon, burnt up in the atmosphere, making it the first probe 
to land on an asteroid and return to Earth.

But its legacy could live on, perhaps helping protect the planet from 
asteroid impacts, if dust from the space rock it visited can be retrieved 
from the spacecraft's cargo capsule.

Advertisement: Story continues belowThe basketball-sized cargo capsule was 
released from the spacecraft just before 9pm and was set to land by 
parachute at Woomera Prohibited Area about midnight last night. In 
preparation for the touch down, the Stuart Highway was blocked from just 
south of Coober Pedy to the north of Glendambo.

Hayabusa was launched in May 2003 and touched down twice in November 2005 on 
Itokawa, a 540-metre long asteroid about 300 million kilometres away, twice 
as far as the Sun.

Fuel leakages, engine breakdowns and loss of communication delayed its 
return by three years. But the Japanese team was able to combine parts still 
working on two engines to bring the crippled craft home.

The Parliamentary Secretary for Innovation and Industry, Richard Marles, 
said it was a huge technological achievement. ''If you've got any affection 
for the little Aussie battler, you've got to love the Hayabusa spacecraft.''

The associate executive director of the Japanese Aerospace Exploration 
Agency, Yoshiyuki Hasegawa, said yesterday he was nervous but excited about 
the return. ''Today is the greatest moment for us.''

Japanese, NASA and Australian scientists flying in a specially equipped 
Douglas DC-8 aircraft were hoping to capture pictures and make measurements 
of the re-entry, with the aim of designing better heat shields for future 
space probes.

With the capsule travelling at more than 12 kilometres a second on re-entry, 
its carbon heat shield would have experienced temperatures of more than 2800 
degrees, while the gas surrounding the capsule would have been hotter than 
the surface of the Sun, at about 7200 degrees.

The Japanese team will check on the capsule's condition this morning and 
Aboriginal landowners will be among the first to see it.

Understanding asteroids will be necessary if we need to deflect one coming 
our way.