Here's a Hayabusa 2 trailer (hat tip to Junya Terazono, who also posted a tweet featuring our favorite Japanese energy drink)

according to this abstract, a possible target for the PROCYON miniprobe would be 1999 JV6, a quasi-satellite of Earth in a 1-year orbit. flyby would be in March 2016.

PROCYON will be flying a lightweight Lyman-alpha camera for imaging the Earth's geocorona at increasing distances.
Presentation in Japanese

Thanks, Paolo

I have started translating this PPT file. I will upload it when complete, perhaps in 10 days time, I think. P

My translation of PROCYON ppt file is now complete, but I have a problem.

It is at 4.8 MB, and I tried to divide it into parts so that I can upload them as attachments.
One such was found to be still at 4.1 MB, containing only 3 pages. I will study sharing procedure,
but it will take time, my apologies. I am not good at IT at all. P

If you can email it to me at blog@planetary.org I can host it for you and post a link here.

Thank you. I am much obliged. I will send the file to the society immediately after this.
Colleagues, please note that on the PPT file in question and on page 4 of it my notation is as follows.

with the left hand diagram

e=evening
m=morning
d=day time
n=night time

with the right hand diagram

N=north
S=south
n and d as above

Thank you once again. P

Here is the PROCYON ppt: "Development of Lyman Alpha Imaging Camera (LAICA) geocorona imaging device for PROCYON, ultrasmall deep space probe," by Shingo Kameda et al.

There was a media event earlier today that shows off the completed spacecraft. Launch date is still on "winter 2014" (December).....

I'm currently trying to find photos.....

Thanks to Emily:

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakda...2-complete.html

This is just in, from a lunch time NHK TV news here.

Hayabusa 2 will be launched on 30 November from Tanegashima space centre. So, that will be an H2-A
rather than the Epsilon, meaning a piggy-back, I think. P

Mission page updated with countdown clock... Very interesting to see the launch date being moved up!

http://global.jaxa.jp/projects/sat/hayabusa2/

four pictures of the ARTSAT 2 flight model have been posted on their Facebook page (hope the link will work...)

My curiosity has vapourised thanks to a recent short newspaper article in the Yomiuri.

There was a similar article recently, which said that the H2A launcher will have a special
coating on its fuel tank and will rotate during its long flight in order to keep fuel loss to a minimum.
I was curious, "long?" , because usual 15 minutes did not seem too long to me, anyway,
but I did not bother to find out.

This Yomiuri article clarified it for me, as follows.

"On 20 October, MHI revealed to the press the H2A 26 launcher, which will be launched on
30 November with Hayabusa 2 on board.　It is a 2 stage rocket and its 1st stage is
37m long with 4m diamter and 2nd stage 11m long.

This time, it will take as long as 2 hours before spacecraft seperation in order to reach its
very distant target. In order to keep fuel loss to a minimum as the liquid hydrogen
vapourises inside the tank its 2nd stage fuel tank has been coated white."

I have been used to the launch of earth bound satellites. This article did not mention rotation, though. P

From the German Aerospace Center (DLR):
The MASCOT lander has been installed onto the Hayabusa-2 spacecraft:
MASCOT on Hayabusa-2

Building of MASCOT described here (in german):
Building MASCOT

There is a short article in today's Asashi (local newspaper) about the launch of Hayabusa 2.
In it I find that Hayabusa 2 will not come back into the atmosphere. Instead it will go away back into space.
Nobody has ever told me that. Did we know it? P

Some adorable Hayabusa 2 and MASCOT manga. Think I'll print these out and have my kids color them! The artist is Go Miyazaki.

I was confused with the "first" frame of that comic until I realized that it read from top RIGHT down and then top left down!

I have since asked around amongst my friends here who are space matters interested.
None of them had known, and do by now. So, my guess is that the decision is
fairly recent. Perhaps, they at ISAS do not want to see the craft destroyed after a
good job (big assumption!).

I am being a typical Roman citizen and want to see the show, but then, yes,
it may be pity that the craft is lost that way. After all space itself may be a museum. P

It may not be lost. Perhaps it could have a life beyond its prime mission like Stardust did.

that is also my impression. it could not have been done with Hayabusa because by the time it returned to Earth it was so badly crippled that it was essentially unusable

There was a short TV programme this evening here on NHK. In it I noticed
two things. I am not sure if the first was new to me, but the second
was.

1. Mid-air explosion will be monitored by a small floating camera
while the main body hides away.

2. The sampler horn now has acute angled teeth all around
the inside edges of the opening which will touch the ground.
This is just in case the ball bearing fails to fire properly.

How do we know there are loose particles? If there is water then
the whole thing may be rock solid. That is my imagination. P

Given what happened on comet 67P, that may very well be the case.

Unless I'm wrong, the target of Hyabusa 2 is an asteroid and not a comet, and a very small asteroid at that, why this talk about ice? If the surface is rock hard, I would expect it it to be because it is rock, but loose material on the suface of asteroids and comets seems to be the rule rather than the exception so far.

1999 JU3 is a carbonaceous C-Type asteroid being thought to contain hydrated minerals and organic material, or by its spectrum at least a certain amount of water.

Itokawa, contrasting that, was a rocky S-Tye asteroid. Each Hayabusa mission (1,2,Mk2) is explicitly aimed towards a different type of minor body.

I guess one of the things Hayabusa will discover is if there is any water present apart from hydrated minerals, although I don't know how Hyabusa will look for volitile, free water in a sample.

Hyabusa 1's active collection system, "the bullet" failed, but there was some material collected passively. I looks like teeth have been added to enhance any passive collection, but hopefully the active system will work on Hyabusa 2. As I see it, the teeth can only help, not hurt in any eventuality.

Launch has been postponed to a date late than 1 December,
due to expected bad weather. If successfully launched it would
be flying out like in the movie here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vq9vZhf79Zg

It is actually H2B-4, carrying cargo to ISS as seen from Okinawa,
but H2A-26 must be looking like that, I think. The movie is meant
to be an early Christmas illumination. The rocket appears to be
lonely, somehow... P

The more I think about comets and asteroids the more confused I get.
What is the difference between them? The former are eccentric, dirty
snow man and the latter are rocky non-eccentric, OK, but is that all?

Can there not be tiny astronomical obecjts in the asteroid belt entirely
(100%) made up of ice? Equally, can there not be those entirely rocky
(100% rock) objects that have very eccentric orbits?

In fact, I seem to remember reading somewhere that there are
eccentric astroids that are dangerous, because detection is difficult.

All I seem to be saying is that there may be hybrids somewhere out there. P

There are intermediate/transitional objects, Pandaneko. One example is 'asteroid' 3200 Phaethon.

Thank you. Very interesting and informative, indeed. This pushes me
into thinking like;

Iron meteorites must mean that somewhere out there there are all metal
asteroids. Likewise, there must exist all ice asteroids somewhere. Flagments may fall
into the atmosphere, but they melt and leave nothing to suggest there are
all ice astroids.

In fact, there may be anything at all out there, all kinds of
unimaginable hybrid asteroids, I think. P

Yep. Things in nature generally exist along a continuum. Re metal asteroids, check out 16 Psyche.

New launch schedule has just been announced. It is now set for
13:22:43 JST. P

and don't forget Main Belt Comets, or damocloids. not to mention the probable presence of water ice on the surface of Ceres, or the discovery of refractory materials in the samples from comet Wild 2.
it is becoming more and more clear that the difference between comets and asteroids is not as clear cut as it seemed up to 20 years ago, and that there is actually a sort of continuum between the two

Silly me. The date is 1 December. P

Thanks, Paolo

for making me aware of icy asteroids and metal asteroids.

To me, metals are easier to understand as they are elements.
Since our Sun is the only fusing body yet to explode our solar
system's metal asteroids (raw materials, at least) must have come
from inter galactic space (presumably as gaseous metals).

However, water is not an element and that makes me feel uneasy.
Can water be produced locally inside our solar system? Or, did water
also come from outside? Do we know at all? P

Those approximately 1900 yottagramm of iron beneath our feet would disagree with you there.

Good updated summary of the mission's early hours:
http://www.spaceflight101.com/hayabusa-2-m...on-updates.html

Also a reminder near the bottom that there's more than just Hayabusa 2 being launched: a separate probe for a few flybys of other asteroids, a student-built technology demonstration, and an art project are all launching together!
Is this the first time multiple craft are being launched on interplanetary missions from a single launcher? Or is there some other precedent our resident space historians recall?

Well, JAXA's already done that with Akatsuki and IKAROS.

Thank you. Yes, I should not be going too far back in time
under this category here. It is the festive season affectimg me, I think.

However, I would like to believe that there are non recycled metals
still left over from the early formation of our solar system and
that metalic objects are out there somewhere, formed not just from mantle
stripping. P

I think the first time multiple spacecraft were injected in independent, solar orbits with a single launch (via Moon flybys) was STEREO-A and -B in 2006. Akatsuki, IKAROS and Shin-en followed in 2010.
Of course there are a lot of other instances where multiple spacecraft (typically lander+orbiter) separated at the target.

by the way, launch is now postponed to December 3, 4:22:04 UTC
http://global.jaxa.jp/projects/sat/hayabusa2/index.html

Hello there pandaneko

Well our current thinking is that nearly all materials that makes up the planets, moons and asteroids originated in a supernova long ago and got very much processed in the early accretion disk and subsequent collisions between objects both large and small.
So most materials is thought to have been quite reprocessed in the early age of the solar system.
The Sun have contributed very little, like the helium on the surface of the Moon.

You might get your wish for metallic objects though, if you don't mind the size, meaning interstellar dust grains.

What are the plans for giving 1999 JU3 to eventually get a 'real' name, like Bennu did? Haven't heard anything about a contest yet..

Edit: good news, looks like the LIPOVITAN-D tradition is alive and well:

https://twitter.com/ots_min/status/53966746...5866624/photo/1

Thank you. This is really sinking into me, particularly "early processing" bit. I wonder then if new arrivals are either
too energetic to be caught by our solar system, or our solar system is now too transparent (probably same thing?)
for them to accumulate here to form anything larger than grains? Thank you, anyway.

On a seperate matter, because I started my thinking about the teeth I now wish to go back there. One of the
advantages of being an amateur is wild imagination, I think, particularly in view of the festive season.

If evidence for water has been found then there must be water on that asteroid. On the other hand it is difficult
to imagine that there are ponds of 20m, 30m across on a small 900m asteroid. My guess is that the asteroid
is covered by frost (not smooth ice), all over. No loose pebbles or anything of that kind.

I want to see the pictures!!! P

Launch coverage now live via spaceflightnow.com. Per my wife's translation, weather conditions are good, no equipment issues. T minus 8 min.

Go Hayabusa 2!!

First stage cutoff & separation, second stage ignition. Looking good thus far.

DSN Now should have AOS later.... 4 antennas are ready and waiting for it

http://eyes.nasa.gov/dsn/dsn.html

Doug, if I'm reading Eyes right, is DSS 24 currently in listen mode for AOS?

EDIT: Correction: It looks like DSS 15 is receiving downlink!

24, 25, 45 and 34 are all waiting for Hayabusa 2

From what I can see in the extended details - they're all ready to listen at 8.426 Ghz (X-Band) with I think 16kbps downlink and and 34 & 45 ready to uplink at 15.6 bps.

(15 is currently getting data from GeoTail, 43 Rosetta and 35 MRO and Mars Odyssey - updates are every 5 seconds)