Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency JAXA Sitemap

TOP > Topics > 2005 > Hayabusa's navigation camera photographed the "Itokawa"

Topics

Hayabusa's navigation camera photographed the "Itokawa"

The asteroid explorer "Hayabusa" is flying smoothly toward the asteroid "Itokawa" and is expected to arrive in mid September.
We have already released a photo of the Itokawa taken by the Hayabusa onboard star tracker on August 15, but another onboard camera, the thin optical navigation camera (ONC-T) also successfully took a photo.
Photos taken on Aug. 23 and Aug. 24 are superimposed so that you can see the movement in comparison with a fixed star in the back.
The distance between the Hayabusa and the Itokawa at the time of the photo was less than 10,000 km, and it is about 330 million kilometers from earth.

1.Image of Asteroid Itokawa taken by HAYABUSA's ONC-T on Aug.23

Image Aug.23

2.Image of Asteroid Itokawa taken by HAYABUSA's ONC-T on Aug.24

Image Aug.24

Itokawa Ioci exposed with optically navigated trajectory

optically navigated trajectory

  • Circles are Itokawa Images taken by Telescopic Optical Navigation Camera(ONC-T).

  • Solid lines are Itokawa Ioci predicted seen from Hayabusa.They were correctly updated,so that the 8/23 images could be on the predict.

August 26, 2005