{"id":16329,"date":"2015-05-13T01:12:53","date_gmt":"2015-05-12T17:12:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/japanese-scientists-abandon-plan-for-asteroid-flyby\/"},"modified":"2015-05-13T01:12:53","modified_gmt":"2015-05-12T17:12:53","slug":"japanese-scientists-abandon-plan-for-asteroid-flyby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/japanese-scientists-abandon-plan-for-asteroid-flyby\/","title":{"rendered":"Japanese scientists abandon plan for asteroid flyby"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Artist's
Artist\u2019s concept of the Procyon spacecraft. Credit: JAXA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

An experimental suitcase-sized space probe launched as a secondary payload with Japan\u2019s Hayabusa 2 mission in December will miss an encounter with an asteroid early next year, according to Japanese scientists.<\/p>\n

The Procyon spacecraft blasted off Dec. 3, 2014, with the Hayabusa 2 asteroid sample return mission, which aims to collect rock specimens from a carbon-rich asteroid and return them to Earth in 2020.<\/p>\n

Scientists at the University of Tokyo and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency designed the 143-pound (65-kilogram) Procyon spacecraft to fly by a different target than Hayabusa 2\u2019s destination, demonstrating that a compact probe can return valuable data millions of miles away from Earth.<\/p>\n

Officials blamed a problem with the Procyon probe\u2019s ion propulsion system, which stopped working in mid-March, according to a report published by the Mainichi Shimbun, a major Japanese newspaper.<\/p>\n

Shaped like a cube roughly 2 feet (60 centimeters) across, Procyon targeted a flyby of asteroid 2000 DP107, an object spanning a half-mile (800 meters) across with its own smaller moon.<\/p>\n

But the mission ran into trouble, and ground controllers raced against a deadline to recover the spacecraft\u2019s ion engine before the end of April, when Procyon needed to adjust its trajectory to reach the asteroid 120 million miles from Earth next year.<\/p>\n

The deep space maneuver with the ion propulsion system was intended to send the spacecraft back toward Earth for a gravity assist in December. Earth\u2019s gravity would then slingshot the probe toward its target in May 2016.<\/p>\n

\"procyon_trajectory\"
Diagram of Procyon\u2019s trajectory after launch in December 2014. The illustration shows the probe reaching an asteroid in January 2016, before scientists selected the mission\u2019s official target for a flyby in May 2016. Credit: JAXA\/University of Tokyo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Mainichi Shimbun reported metallic dust is adhered to the inside of the engine, which may also have a short circuit. Attempts to remove the dust by spinning the spacecraft were unsuccessful, according to the news report.<\/p>\n

The newspaper said the University of Tokyo and JAXA developed the Procyon mission for 500 million yen \u2014 about $4.1 million.<\/p>\n

The mission\u2019s objectives were to demonstrate small spacecraft technologies for deep space exploration and collect imagery and other data during an asteroid flyby.<\/p>\n

The $240 million (28.9 billion yen) Hayabusa 2 mission is on track to reach its target \u2014 asteroid 1999 JU3 \u2014 in June 2018 for a year-and-a-half of surveys, mapping and daring touch-and-go descents to pick up rock fragments from the body\u2019s surface. The craft will also drop a quartet of landers to bounce across the asteroid to study the object up close.<\/p>\n

Hayabusa 2 will depart the asteroid in December 2019 and return to Earth in December 2020, dropping a canister with samples through the atmosphere for a parachute-assisted landing in Australia.<\/p>\n

Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Artist\u2019s concept of the Procyon spacecraft. Credit: JAXA An experimental suitcase-sized space probe launched as a secondary payload with Japan\u2019s Hayabusa 2 mission in December will miss an encounter with an asteroid early next year, according to Japanese scientists. The Procyon spacecraft blasted off Dec. 3, 2014, with the Hayabusa 2 asteroid sample return mission, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[877,4060],"class_list":["post-16329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-jaxa","tag-procyon"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16329"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16329\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}