Planetary News ARCHIVE

June 28, 2003

Nozomi Heads for Mars

Japan's first spacecraft to Mars, Nozomi (hope), completed its final Earth swingby on June 19 when it passed within 18,000km of the planet. The swingby is an operation to provide the craft with velocity boost and redirection it needs to head for its celestial target by using planet's gravity.

Nozomi, however, has to face another critical manuever to revive its malfunctioned heating system in order to arrive at the red planet early next January. Its heating system was dealt with a serious blow by unusually powerful outburst of solar flares that occurred in April 2002, causing damages to its communications and power-generation systems. The mission engineers of ISAS will work on repairing the heating system from upcoming July through November.

Nozomi (Courtesy: ISAS)

Nozomi made a good start as the first-ever planetary mission by Japan when launched on July 4, 1998. The scientific objective of the mission is a detailed survey on Mars' electromagnetic properties and the upper atmosphere with emphasis on its interaction with the solar wind. Five and half months later, however, the spacecraft met with the malfunction of a thruster that eventually called for two more Earth swingbys of last December 21 and on June 19 this year. The roundabout trajectory was intended to save craft's fuel that was overly consumed during the initial powered swingby, resulting in a delay in its encounter with the red planet for four years and a half.

Nozomi's ambitious plan to participate in the "Mars Rush 2004" depends solely on the recovery of the plagued heating system. For further details of the mission, refer to http://www.isas.ac.jp/e/enterp/missions/index.html

Hayabusa Survives A Critical Phase

The Hayabusa spacecraft completed a series of test to fire its four onboard ion-engine thrusters. The Deep Space Center at the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, ISAS, succeeded in firing the first thruster on May 27, followed by smooth testing of three other thrusters that continued until the middle of June. Hayabusa will start to follow a trajectory toward Asteroid 1998SF 36, a tiny minor planet with a size of approximately 500 meters in diameter, circling at an averaged distance of approximately 3million km from the earth.

Hayabusa (Courtesy:ISAS)

The world's first sample return mission to an asteroid was launched on May 9 under the name of MUSES-C from the Kagoshima Space Center of ISAS. Upon reaching its trajectory to cruise around the earth, the spacecraft was renamed Hayabusa, a falcon, according to institute's long-standing naming tradition in case of a successful launch. Hayabusa will encounter with the targeted asteroid in June 2005. It will conduct a scientific survey for about three months from the orbit. Upon completing the orbital research, the spacecraft will embark on the sample collection from the asteroid's surface. About a gram of sample materials will be gathered by three touch-and-go contacts.

Collected samples will be stored in a re-entry capsule attached just above a sampler. The spacecraft will leave the asteroid by November 2005, beginning to coast around in space to return to Earth. On July 2007, the re-entry capsule will be detached from the craft to be put into Earth's atmosphere. After surviving re-entry phase, the capsule will deploy a parachute to land in a dessert in Australia. For details of the mission, refer to http://www.muses-c.isas.ac.jp/English/index.html