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Space Topics: Hayabusa (MUSES-C)

Raw Data from the Hayabusa mission

Credit for these images belongs to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS).

The images on these pages come from the AMICA imaging system on the Hayabusa spacecraft. AMICA has a 1024-by-1024 pixel CCD chip. It operates in the visible, near-infrared and near-ultraviolet wavelength ranges and is equipped with a filter wheel including a wide-bandpass filter and seven narrowband filters. The central wavelngths of the narrowband filters are designed to be nearly equivalent to those of the Eight Color Asteroid Survey (ECAS) system as follows:

Four position-angle glass polarizers were mounted on an edge of the chip, which appears to darken one edge of some images. Images were compressed on board using either a lossless or lossy compression algorithm. In addition, some images were reduced in resolution by binning 2x2, 4x4, or 8x8 before being returned to Earth.

The data was released to the public via the Hayabusa Project Science Data Archive on April 23, 2007. The images were made available in FITS format. They were all downloaded on April 30 and May 1, 2007 and converted to 16-bit PNG format using Björn Jónsson's IMG2PNG utility. Thumbnails on these pages are shown at 1/8 the full resolution of the original image, and have been automatically contrast-stretched. Many of the full-size 16-bit images appear to be all black because most of the data has low pixel values; adjusting the contrast of the images will reveal the images' details. An index to all the files in Excel format can be downloaded here.

	Cruise phase May 19, 2003 - May 15, 2004
	Earth swingby May 16-19, 2004 Hayabusa acquired images of both Earth and the Moon.
	Cruise phase May 20, 2004 - September 11, 2005 Hayabusa first imaged Itokawa on September 5, 2004, but did not resolve the tiny asteroid until almost a year later. Images captured toward the end of cruise revealed the otter-like shape of the asteroid.
	Gate position September 12-29, 2005 Hayabusa performed initial surveys from this position about 20 kilometers above Itokawa, including multispectral studies and lengthy movies of the asteroid's rotation.
	Home position September 30 - October 7, 2005 Hayabusa descended for a closer look, around 7 kilometers above the surface, again studying the asteroid's shape, rotation, and surface coloration.
	Home position October 8-28, 2005 Hayabusa toured around the asteroid to various altitudes, different solar phase angles, and viewed both poles.
	Descent and touchdown October 30 - November 19, 2005 Hayabusa descended twice, touching down on November 19 and 25, 2005, capturing its highest resolution images during the careful descents.