Kyodo News Service: "Japan releases probing robot toward asteroid Itokawa"

This story moved about 3:04 AM today EST. Nothing on the
JAXA website or the Hayabusa home page (not unusual,
they are VERY slow in posting news). No emails from
Japanese contacts. NO WESTERN NEWS AGENCY REPORTS.

TASS Tokyo correspondent Sergey Mingazhev reports
(http://www.itar-tass.com/level2.html?NewsID=2616643&PageNum=0)
the probe was deployed and first TV images are expected
tomorrow (Sunday). That report moved at 3:11 AM EST.

-- JimO

Japan space probe releases probing robot toward asteroid Itokawa
Saturday November 12, 5:04 PM [Japan Time]
(Kyodo) _ A Japanese space probe on Saturday released a small probing
robot toward an asteroid orbiting the sun between Earth and Mars as part of
a rehearsal for its own planned descent later this month, Japan's space
agency said.
The probe, named Hayabusa, dropped the robot called Minerva toward the
asteroid Itokawa, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said. The rehearsal
initially held Nov. 4 was aborted before deploying Minerva due to technical
problems.
It is the first time for Japan to send equipment to an astronomic object
outside Earth. The potato-shaped asteroid -- 548 meters long, 312 meters
wide and 276 meters high -- is about 320 million kilometers away from Earth.
Minerva, weighing less than 600 grams and equipped with three small
cameras, is expected to hop around the asteroid and send data, such as
surface temperatures and images, back to Earth via Hayabusa, the agency
said.
Hayabusa, launched in May 2003 to travel to Itokawa to collect surface
samples, is scheduled to conduct two touchdowns on the asteroid on Nov. 19
and 25 to take rock samples before heading back to Earth. It is to arrive
back on Earth in June 2007.
The space agency expects the mission to answer questions about the birth
of the solar system.
The asteroid was discovered in 1998 by scientists at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology in the United States. It was named after the late
Hideo Itokawa, Japan's pioneer rocket scientist