World's Space Agency Leaders Discuss Common Goals at Summit

The heads of 27 space agencies from countries all over the world ?met today (Nov. 17) at a summit in Washington to discuss the future of space exploration.

NASA administrator Charlie Bolden was among the speakers at the Heads of Space Agencies Summit, organized in honor of the 50th anniversary of the International Academy of Astronautics, a group that aims to foster the development of astronautics for peaceful purposes.

The summit brought the agency leaders together to discuss international cooperation in four areas: human spaceflight, robotic space exploration, climate change and disaster management.

After the event, Bolden noted that the space agencies are concerned by "issues almost all countries are grappling with, such as changing national priorities and stagnant budgets. NASA has been actively working with many of the space agencies attending the summit to further our common understanding of exploration and establish global partnerships."

Other notable speakers were Abdul A.P.J. Kalam, the former president of India; Leonid ?Kuchma, the former president of Ukraine; and Dumitru-Dorin Prunariu, chairman of the United Nations' Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space.

"NASA recognizes that exploration beyond low-Earth orbit will involve the coordination, cooperation and support of other countries," Bolden said. "I can assure you that as we look to the future, international cooperation will continue to be a cornerstone of NASA's exploration activities."

Five major space agencies ? from the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan and Canada ? have worked ?together to build the $100 billion International Space Station. The station is the product of cooperation among 15 different countries in all.Astronauts and cosmonauts have been flying missions to it for just over 10 years during its construction, which began in 1998 and is due to be completed in 2011.

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Security Summit to Force Space Station Crew to Land Early

Two American astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut living on the International Space Station will have to return to Earth a few days early to avoid interfering with an international security summit being held near their landing site in Central Asia.

NASA astronauts Shannon Walker and Douglas Wheelock and Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin are now slated to land their Russian Soyuz TMA-19 space capsule on the central steppes of Kazakhstan on Thursday, Nov. 25 at 11:46 p.m. EST (0446 GMT on Nov. 26). The crew is wrapping up a five-month flight to the International Space Station.

The Soyuz landing was originally scheduled to occur four days later, on Nov. 30, but Kazakh officials wanted to restrict air traffic a few days before the start of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe summit, which is being held in Astana, Kazakhstan, Dec. 1-2.

Astana is approximately 250 miles (400 kilometers) away from the Soyuz landing site.

"Kazakh officials asked our Russian partners if they could make the adjustment to avoid conflicts with the conference," NASA spokesman Kelly Humphries told SPACE.com from the Johnson Space Center in Houston. "There's some preparation work that's going to have to be changed a little bit, and some maintenance work that requires additional crewmembers will be shifted."

The adjustments are not expected to cause any problems, and with the opening of the next space shuttle launch window quickly approaching, the change might even free up some traffic in space.

"There was already work in the mill regarding a Nov. 30th launch of the shuttle to begin that mission," Humphries said. "So, maybe it's going to work out nicely for the crew with this time frame shifted over a little bit."

NASA is preparing space shuttle Discovery is slated to fly on its final voyage on Nov. 30. That launch target, however, depends on the completions of repairs being made to Discovery's external fuel tank. The launch window for Discovery opens on Nov. 30 and closes on Dec. 6.

In the meantime, Yurchikhin, Walker and Wheelock will continue making preparations for their homecoming as they near the end of their long-duration stay aboard the space station.The three spaceflyers launched to the station on a Russian Soyuz rocket on June 15.

After their departure, the station will drop down to a three-person crew ?until mid-December, when Catherine Coleman, Paolo Nespoli and Dmitri Kondratyev journey to the space station to round out the outpost's Expedition 26 crew.

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Asteroid Dust Successfully Returned by Japanese Space Probe

A Japanese spacecraft that touched down on a space rock during a billion-mile mission successfully returned the first ever samples from the surface of an asteroid, Japan's space agency said today (Nov. 16).

The samples are in the form of tiny dust grains collected directly from the asteroid Itokawa in 2005 by Japan's Hayabusa spacecraft, which returned to Earth in June. It was a 1.25 billion-mile (2 billion-kilometer) trip that took seven years to complete. [Photo of the asteroid samples]

The dust was found inside a sample return capsule that landed in Australia and was flown back to Japan for analysis.

"About 1,500 grains were identified as rocky particles, and most of them were judged to be of extraterrestrial origin, and definitely from Asteroid Itokawa," the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said in a statement.

JAXA scientists have known there were particles of material in the Hayabusa sample return capsule since July. But they were unsure if those particles were actually pieces of an asteroid, cosmic dust or contamination from Earth.

Now, they said, it is clear. The Hayabusa spacecraft collected samples of an asteroid.

"Being able to retrieve material from a celestial body beyond Earth was more than we had hoped for," Hayabusa project manager Junichiro Kawaguchi told Japan's Mainichi Daily News. "When the capsule returned, I said, 'Just having it return is like a dream,' so I don't know how to express this, which was beyond my dreams."

This graphic shows how the Hayabusa asteroid mission worked. Itokawa is a silicon-rich asteroid about 1,755 feet (535 meters) long at its longest side. It takes about 556 days to complete one orbit around the sun.

JAXA scientists used a scanning electron microscope to study the asteroid samples collected by Hayabusa. They found signs of minerals such as olivine, pyroxene and others, which matched remote-sensing observations taken by Hayabusa when it visited asteroid Itokawa.

Most of the particles are about 10 micrometers in size, roughly 1/10th the width of a human hair. They were found in one of two compartments inside the Hayabusa sample return capsule and must be handled delicately, JAXA officials said.

"JAXA is developing the necessary handling techniques and preparing the associated equipment for the initial (but more detailed) analyses of these ultra-minute particles," they added.

The fact that the Hayabusa spacecraft returned asteroid samples is the ultimate vindication for Japan's mission team.

JAXA launched Hayabusa (Japanese for "Falcon") in 2003. The spacecraft arrived at the asteroid Itokawa in 2005 while the asteroid was 180 million miles (nearly 290 million km) from Earth ? almost twice the distance between our planet and the sun.

But Hayabusa experienced several crippling problems during the mission, including a fuel leak, communications breakdowns and malfunctions with its ion engines. The setbacks added an extra three years to Hayabusa's mission.

The probe was supposed to drop a lander on Itokawa, but the lander missed the asteroid's surface. Attempts to fire a projectile at the asteroid to kick up dust to be collected also failed.

Ultimately, JAXA directed Hayabusa to directly land twice on asteroid Itokawa in attempts to force some samples into its return capsule.  

The Hayabusa spacecraft returned to Earth on June 13. Most of the craft burned up in Earth's atmosphere as planned during re-entry. Its sample return capsule, which was equipped with a heat shield and parachute, was ejected to make its own successful landing in the Australian outback and was later recovered.

"I'm filled with emotion and I can't believe it," Kawaguchi said. "A long period of hard work has paid off."

With the mission's success, JAXA has already begun planning a follow-up mission ? called Hayabusa 2 ? which would send a $200 million spacecraft to visit a carbon-rich asteroid. That mission is slated to launch in 2014, arrive at the asteroid in 2018 and return samples to Earth by 2020, JAXA officials have said.

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