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fivemackhttp://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0508/22hayabusa/
Flies by ion engine to asteroid Itokawa, images it at one-metre resolution with IR and X-ray spectroscopy, deploys a small hopping rover, makes three passes in which it touches down a funnel and fires in a bullet, collecting debris in a capsule; returns the capsule by parachute to the middle of the Australian outback June-after-next.
It's an actually plausible asteroid prospector, it's about to rendezvous with the asteroid, it's Japanese, and the first I heard of it was this evening.
Flies by ion engine to asteroid Itokawa, images it at one-metre resolution with IR and X-ray spectroscopy, deploys a small hopping rover, makes three passes in which it touches down a funnel and fires in a bullet, collecting debris in a capsule; returns the capsule by parachute to the middle of the Australian outback June-after-next.
It's an actually plausible asteroid prospector, it's about to rendezvous with the asteroid, it's Japanese, and the first I heard of it was this evening.
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beamjockey
Date: 2005-08-23 10:55 pm (UTC)In my defense, I did mention it on Eponymously Yours, W. Skeffington Higgins on 16 August. But it eluded your notice, I fear.