A Japanese mission that can study the parent body of a famous meteor shower can have to attend a bit longer to get off the bottom.
DESTINY+, an acronym constructed from “Demonstration and Experiment of Space Technology for Interplanetary Voyage, Phaethon Flyby and Dust Science,” will study the asteroid 3200 Phaethon — the parent of the Geminid meteor shower — and interplanetary dust.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) mission was because of launch next 12 months, however the agency has now confirmed that it would be delayed into 2025 because of issues with the event of the Epsilon S rocket, Kyodo News reported on Oct. 27.
Related: Geminid meteor shower 2023: When, where & how you can see it
Epsilon S is a planned successor to the Japanese Epsilon solid-fuel rocket. A rocket engine related to the brand new launch vehicle exploded during testing in July, forcing the delay.
3200 Phaethon is a curious near-Earth object, exhibiting characteristics just like each asteroids and comets. This makes it each an unusual source of a meteor shower and in addition a goal of serious scientific interest. The irregular, 3-mile-wide (5 kilometers) chunk of rock made a relatively close approach to Earth in 2017. It’s the source of the Geminids, which rain down upon Earth’s atmosphere every December.
The DESTINY+ spacecraft will launch from Uchinoura Space Center (USC). The 1,060-pound (480 kilograms) spacecraft will enter an initial elliptical Earth orbit. It is going to carry 4 ion engines to power its journey through space once it separates from the launch vehicle, using a lunar swing-by to speed up it into deep space. It is going to also use thin-film lightweight solar array panels.
DESTINY+ will make a flyby of Phaethon, using telescopic and multiband cameras to survey the surface of the asteroid. The flyby, at a distance of 310 miles (500 km) and a relative speed of around 74,000 mph (119,000 kph), was expected in 2029, but JAXA has not provided a brand new date for the close approach.
The spacecraft will even conduct in-situ evaluation of interplanetary and interstellar dust using the dust analyzer, developed under the leadership of the University of Stuttgart and supported by the Germany space agency DLR (“Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt”), JAXA says. The aim is to evaluate whether extraterrestrial dust particles and associated organic compounds arriving on Earth played a job within the creation of life on the planet.
JAXA says the mission will even show technologies akin to its solar arrays and electric ion propulsion that can enable future low-cost and high-frequency deep space exploration.