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Hayabusa ready for launch

In a press photo op the Japanese have unveiled the completed Hayabusa 2, ready for its journey to an asteroid.

Hayabusa 2 will deploy one of five target markers that it will use to guide itself into landing and collecting a sample. It will deploy a European-built lander named MASCOT and three (count them, three) “rovers” called MINERVA-II. I put “rovers” in quotes because I think these are not wheeled rovers but rather bouncy hoppers like Hayabusa 1’s MINERVA (which was deployed but sadly missed Itokawa). Then it will do an experiment like Deep Impact’s, releasing an impactor to make a crater on the asteroid’s surface. But because Hayabusa 2’s impactor won’t have much kinetic energy, they made it explosive. The mothership will have to hide in the shadow of the asteorid as the explosion happens, so they have also added the deployable DCAM3 to try to get a view of the crater’s formation.

Rendezvous is set for around 2018 with the spacecraft’s sample return to Earth sometime in 2020.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

One comment

  • Cotour

    Have there been any opinions formed on this web site on the subject of the Ecat (LENR) yet?

    http://animpossibleinvention.com/

    “There are two major developments expected with regards to the E-Cat.

    1) The publication of a report being written by European academics who have conducted long-term testing of an E-Cat reactor. According to Rossi the testing has been completed and the report is being reviewed by a panel of academics, to be published in a scientific magazine.

    2) Industrial Heat, the owners of the E-Cat technology now, have built a 1 MW E-Cat plant which will be installed on a production line and will provide heat for some kind of industrial process. Once the plant is installed at a customer’s factory and has been operational for some time it will be opened up for invited visitors from the press to view. According to Andrea Rossi, this could happen before the end of this year.

    I think these are the most interesting developments in the LENR world at the moment. It seems like all the LENR community are waiting to see how these two developments play out.”

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