Japanese Probe Apparently Gets Asteroid Samples
An AP newswire article, via USA Today, reports that:
A Japanese spacecraft showed signs of trouble Saturday after apparently landing on an asteroid and collecting surface samples in an unprecedented mission to bring the extraterrestrial material back to Earth, officials said.
The Hayabusa probe, hovering about three miles from the asteroid, appeared to be shaking due to a possible gas leak from a thruster, said Atsushi Akoh, a spokesman for Japan's space agency, JAXA.
JAXA will put Hayabusa into "safety mode" — which stabilizes the probe by turning its solar panels toward the sun — for two to three days to investigate, Akoh said.
Communications between the probe and the control center near Tokyo were stable, he said.
JAXA announced earlier Saturday that Hayabusa appeared to have touched down for a few seconds on the asteroid about 180 million miles from Earth, collecting powder from its surface before lifting off again to transmit data to mission controllers.
posted by Fergie @ 11/28/2005 08:22:00 AM
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