Touchdown of the Hayabusa Spacecraft at the Muses Sea on Itokawa
Science2006Vol. 312(5778), pp. 1350–1353
Citations Over TimeTop 10% of 2006 papers
Hajime Yano, Takuji Kubota, Hideaki Miyamoto, Tatsuaki Okada, Daniel J. Scheeres, Y. Takagi, Kazuya Yoshida, Masanao Abe, Shinsuke Abe, O. S. Barnouin, Akira Fujiwara, Sunao Hasegawa, Tatsuaki Hashimoto, Masateru Ishiguro, M. Kato, Jun’ichiro Kawaguchi, T. Mukai, J. Saito, S. Sasaki, Makoto Yoshikawa
Abstract
After global observations of asteroid 25143 Itokawa by the Hayabusa spacecraft, we selected the smooth terrain of the Muses Sea for two touchdowns carried out on 19 and 25 November 2005 UTC for the first asteroid sample collection with an impact sampling mechanism. Here, we report initial findings about geological features, surface condition, regolith grain size, compositional variation, and constraints on the physical properties of this site by using both scientific and housekeeping data during the descent sequence of the first touchdown. Close-up images revealed the first touchdown site as a regolith field densely filled with size-sorted, millimeter- to centimeter-sized grains.
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