Hayabusa's longest day

Well, it’s a bit Jingalese, but it makes a good read anyway:

We are sure that Hayabusa has accomplished the great feat to collect sample soils from a celestial body other than moon. I am heartily proud of those brilliant youths of this country. Below is a live coverage of “The Longest Day”.
That day, November 20th, I was studying the data from Hayabusa that flew as far as100km away in safe hold mode from ITOKAWA just like dreaming a nightmare. But Hayabusa team was not even allowed time to dream a nightmare. It took them a whole week by restless work to get it back to the original gate position.

And so on. A blow-by-blow of Hyabusa’s most recent dance with Death. The AJAX crew’re sure that they have a soil sample from the big mutant dust sausage, now all they need to do is get it the bazillion or so kilometers back home.

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Plantagenet Penguinista

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