Phaethon – Behind The Black

Japan delays asteroid mission due to its rocket problems

November 7, 2023 9:02 am Robert Zimmerman

Japan’s space agency JAXA has decided to delay its Destiny+ mission to the asteroid Phaethon until 2025 due to the continuing problems getting its Epsilon-S rocket off the ground.

Epsilon-S is intended as an upgrade to Japan’s Epsilon rocket, but its development has been plagued by failures. In October ’22 there was a launch failure of Epsilon, and in July ’23 the second-stage solid-fueled motor of Epsilon-S exploded during a test.

Phaethon is the parent asteroid of the Geminid meteor shower that occurs each year in December. According to the original plan Destiny+ would have done its fly-by of the asteroid in 2029. No new arrival date has been announced.

Arecibo returns to operation with images of asteroid Phaethon

December 22, 2017 10:02 am Robert Zimmerman

The Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico has resumed science observations after recovering from Hurricane Maria with new radio images of the asteroid Phaethon.

After several months of downtime after Hurricane Maria blew through, the Arecibo Observatory Planetary Radar has returned to normal operation, providing the highest-resolution images to date of near-Earth asteroid 3200 Phaethon during its Dec. 16 flyby of Earth. The radar images, which are subtle at the available resolution, reveal the asteroid is spheroidal in shape and has a large concavity at least several hundred meters in extent near the leading edge, and a conspicuous dark, circular feature near one of the poles. Arecibo’s radar images of Phaethon have resolutions as fine as about 250 feet (75 meters) per pixel.

The images also revealed that Phaethon, which is considered a potentially hazardous near Earth asteroid, is about 3.6 miles across and is about a half mile larger than previously believed.