Eponymously Yours, W. Skeffington Higgins

Congratulations to our Canadian friends, whose several spacecraft have today been launched into orbit by the Indian Space Research Organization. BRITE-Austria and its sister UniBRITE, the smallest space telescopes ever, were designed in Canada, but will be operated by Austrian universities. They'll study variability in bright stars. Sapphire will track high-Earth-orbit objects for the Department of National Defence. NEOSSat will also track orbiting objects part-time, and will spend the rest of its time searching for asteroids at angles relatively near the Sun (where an earthbound telescope would see only daytime sky).

Space.com ran a good interview about NEOSSat with planetary scientist Alan Hildebrand.

On the same page, Space.com also featured a photo of the telescope carried by NEOSSat, which I found interesting:



Superimposed on it was an advertisement that included an illustration of a Dodge Durango.

The ad may give a misleading impression of the telescope's size.
( Behind the cut, another perspective )

Hayabusa has been out of touch since 9 December. JAXA (warning, translation bumps ahead) is now hoping to restore communication with the spacecraft in time to command an opportunity to return to Earth in 2010, rather than the planned 2007 pass. Seems unlikely that it actually completed its asteroid landing and sample-grab.

After more than two years in transit, Hayabusa has arrived at Itokawa!