After attending the recent 27th ISTS (International Symposium on Space Technology and Science)conference in Japan, presentations were given that elaborated upon recent Japanese thinking on NEO spacecraft missions.
The presentation was by Makoto Yoshikawa of JAXA for the paper entitled: "Hayabusa Follow-on Asteroid Sample Return Missions."
In the presentation Dr. Yoshikawa talked about the Hayabusa 2 follow on mission (following upon the very successful Japanese Hayabusa mission to asteroid Itokawa).
Dr. Yoshikawa stated that JAXA has a new proposal for Hayabusa 2, namely that they are now proposing the mission have two spacecraft with one specifically being an impactor. They would be launched on the same launch vehicle and have the same target as previous plans, 1999JU3. They would follow different trajectories after launch. The impactor mass would be 300 kg.
The implications of this change and it relation to the potential joint ESA/JAXA Macro Polo mission as well as the Don Quijote mission concept remain to be determined. All these spacecraft mission plans are dependent upon funding. But it seems the original Hayabusa 2 mission of a non-impactor sample return may have changed. This change itself is also subject to change.
Paper reference:
Title: "Hayabusa Follow-on Asteroid Sample Return Missions"
Authors: Makoto Yoshikawa1, Hajime Yano1, Tetsuya Yamada1, Mutsuko Morimoto1, Masatoshi Matsuoka2, Junichiro Kawaguchi1, Masanao Abe1, Kazutaka Nishiyama1, Tetsuo Yoshimitsu1, Detlef Koschny3, Antonella Barucci4, David Agnolon3, Jens Romstedt3, Lutz Richter5 (1JAXA, Japan, 2NEC Aerospace Systems, Japan, 3ESTEC/ESA, The Netherlands, 4Paris Observatory, France, 5DLR, Germany)
Conference: 27th ISTS (International Symposium on Space Technology and Science), 05-12 July 2009.
Link: ISTS Website
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