Japanese scientists will cause the 510 kg Hayabusa spacecraft to collide with the ISS in June 2010 in a controlled manner, in order to simulate an asteroid impact
Japanese scientists will cause the "Hyabusa" spacecraft, which weighs 510 kg, to collide with the ISS in June 2010 in a controlled manner, in order to simulate an asteroid impact.
The rover, which was sent into space to bring samples from the asteroid Itokuwa, will house the samples in a heat-resistant capsule. The capsule will separate from the spacecraft immediately before entering the atmosphere of the ISS, and will land with the help of a parachute, while the spacecraft will enter a collision course with the ISS.
The program was not part of the original Yabusa mission, but scientists from JAXA - the Japanese Space Research Agency, decided that since the Mila spacecraft was going to disintegrate and disintegrate upon entering the Earth's atmosphere, it could be used for another final mission.
"Even though Yaabusa Aina is really an asteroid, it will be deflected into an orbit that will cause it to collide with the Earth in the same way as an asteroid," says JAXA spokesman Akinori Hashimoto.
"We will monitor its movement, and the information will allow us to estimate more precisely the future trajectories of asteroids that are near the Earth."
The JAXA agency currently does not have the tools to track asteroids close to Earth, so the scientists, under the direction of Makoto Yoshikawa, developed a prototype system to calculate the trajectory, time, speed and probability of an asteroid impact.
The team had the opportunity to test the system in October 2008, and witness the impact of asteroid 2008-TC3 a few hours before it turned into a fireball in the Sudanese sky.
The collision with the Yabusa will allow scientists to more precisely direct the system of calculations of the asteroid trackers. "It is very important that we develop accurate ways to predict where the asteroid is going to hit, because even the smallest ones can cause enormous damage," says Hashimoto.
Hashimoto points out that if the 300-meter-long asteroid Itokawa were to hit DHA, it would cause an explosion 150,000 times larger than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
The Japanese space agency will be given international help from NASA. "The entry of the Yabusa spacecraft into the Earth's atmosphere will be monitored prior to entry using optical telescopes on the ground in an effort to verify the software recently developed by JAXA," says Donald K. Yeomans, program director for Near Earth Object Research at NASA, California.
In addition, ground-based telescopes around the world will follow the capsule with the asteroid samples to ensure its safe landing.
The samples in the capsule are of great importance since this may be the first time, since the Apollo program, that samples from a celestial object are returned to Earth. However no one knows what they might find inside the capsule.
In November 2005, Jaxa reported that the spacecraft touched the ground and also fired a projectile into the asteroid that caused dust to rise above the ground to be collected by the collection devices. Also that year, it contradicted its original report and raised questions about the success or failure of the mission.
In fact, they will be able to tell if the spacecraft actually collected a soil sample from the asteroid or not only when the sample lands on Earth.
15 תגובות
For "basic approaches":
You said that "in light of our forecasting capabilities in this regard and lack of defense capabilities, which are at the level of absolute zero".
Our defense capability is not "absolutely zero"…..!
Already today, if they find out that there is an asteroid that can hit the Earth, then we have measures that can make it not happen.
And in a few more years as our technology improves then we will have more means to make asteroids miss.
a question:
If the asteroid does crash on Earth, what will be the damage effect?
As I imagine, the Tsar bomb "Ivan" whose explosion intensity was 3,300 times that of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima (including nuclear sawdust) caused damage, but not on a global scale.
And so again I am interested: what would be the order of magnitude of a 150,000 times explosion caused by the asteroid collision?
Wow, tell me there is a situation that the spaceship will collide with the Earth and is there any danger in what the Japanese are doing?
How lucky we were saved from the yabusa……
The point was not to harm the earth in order to inflict damage (because after all, people live here),
but to simulate an asteroid impact in order to fine-tune Jaxa's new asteroid monitoring system.
The spaceship disintegrates in the atmosphere at Mila, so the Japanese have already used it for one last mission and put it in such an orbit that it will collide with the Earth as if it were a small asteroid sent from space.
What is needed for the experiment to be successful:
1. Cameras that will be able to record the damage at several specific points at the same time.
The cameras themselves should be located close to these points.
2. Preserve Yabusa in as few pieces as possible in order to document the damage.
3. Reach an impact speed of at least 7 km / second or more.
In the next experiment they will do, it is advisable to think and then do and not the other way around…….
Or ask the Israelis who like to give advice...
It is not certain that the Japanese are so capable of making a comparison between five hundred kilograms, and an asteroid that can represent a sample, such as one the size of a mountain.
How do you compare a small spacecraft weighing 500 kg to an asteroid, the damage will be zero.
Thank you very much.
And Yoav, majoring in physics is a great thing.
Comment correction:
"And yet he did not reach the ground"
After watching a NASA expert talk about asteroid TC3-2008, I realized that it was a rocky object the size of a Volkswagen Beetle.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoZ1WK7_L7c
The Yabosa weighs 500 kg, consists of various devices, and is supposed to collide with our earth. So it is possible that TC3-2008 burned up in the atmosphere before hitting the ground, and it weighs no less than 5 tons (10 times or more than the Yabosa), the density of its material and its structure, a lot More dense, harder than Iabusa, and yet it reached the ground, so how do you expect Iabusa to arrive? See For example, the Columbia ferry.
There are, of course, additional data that must be taken into account such as entry trajectory, speed, etc. Since the decision that the spaceship would crash on Earth was made after launch, it was not possible to build Yavosa to cross the atmosphere and crash on Earth (aerodynamic structure, thermodynamic envelope, etc.). It seems to me that there is a big bet on the success of the operation, unless I am missing other important data?
Thank you and good luck to Yavusa and Yael.
Below is a quote from Japan on the subject of the expected suicide of the Japanese spacecraft!!:-
Spaceship Japoniza Kamikaze!, Yabusa Asteroid Harakiri!.
And a response to Mr. Yoav:-
The astronomical knowledge you express in your two overlapping responses is enormous!,
And the science commentators confirm (and are happy) that Shiel Petar is wise, beautiful on a cosmological level, touch wood, Hamsa, Hamsa!
Good Day!
Sabdarmish Yehuda
It is true that the actual asteroid hazard, and fortunately for us, "comes to visit" with a small frequency compared to the lifetime of humanity in general, and the lifetime of man in particular; But in light of our predictive capabilities in this regard and lack of defense capabilities, which are at the level of absolute zero; It doesn't take much imagination to know what might happen to human civilization in a flash and in a fraction of a second, whose development was achieved in almost endless struggles between the various peoples and cultures, throughout human history; If an actual gram of this type, it will survive its movement in the Earth's atmosphere.
It would be right to come to our senses in time, to act to achieve an international consensus on this issue and to develop maximum defense capabilities, at the expense of other developments and huge investments, of the types such as the investments that non-threatened countries invest in the accumulation of weapons stockpiles and destruction, which will have real use against them, should an asteroid come to visit the Earth, In view of the exhaustion of hands and the lack of action that exist until our time.
I'm still shocked that a very, very, very, very smart woman is also very, very, very pretty. (I knocked three times on the tree).
Wow, how beautiful, I'm switching to a physics major, maybe in the future you'll be my teacher.