The Hayabusa2 was originally supposed to make contact back in October (Image credit: JAXA)
Last month, Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa2 landed on asteroid Ryugu to collect samples for scientists to study back home – only the second time this has been pulled off. Recently, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has shared a video of the brief moment taken by its small on board camera. It shows the moment when the spacecraft fired a bullet into Ryugu’s surface to kick up dust and fragments it could grab. Originally, this was supposed to happen in October 2018, but the asteroid has much bigger gravel than the ground team expected.
Now, that it has collected the sample, Hayabusa-2 will hold onto it until it leaves Ryugu and returns to Earth in late 2020. These samples are important since they could tell us more about the chemical makeup of these rocks along with what materials were present in the early days of the Solar System. “From a scientific perspective, it’s going back to the dawn of the solar system,” Dante Lauretta, the principal investigator for NASA’s asteroid sample return mission OSIRIS-REx, who has worked with the Hayabusa-2 team, tells The Verge. “These asteroids are the first rocks that formed around the Sun before the planets existed.”
Though it sounds simple, getting samples from an asteroid is a major feat. It’s a difficult process that requires pinpoint precision around an object where there’s limited gravity. Any small amount of force, like pressure from solar radiation, can push the vehicle off course. To prevent this, JAXA held multiple dress rehearsals where they lowered the spacecraft very close to the spot on Ryugu where they wanted to get a sample. And considering how smooth the mission went it seems like all that practice was worth it.
That’s one mission down, but Hayabusa2 still has more to do. Starting in April, the spacecraft will start a sequence of operations that will see it extract subsurface material from Ryugu. The probe will make a crater by deploying a small explosive device onto the asteroid, followed by a touchdown to scoop up the debris.
Back in 2014, JAXA, launched Hayabusa 2 to land on Ryugu, to learn more about its solar systems. The spacecraft arrived in the vicinity of Ryugu in June and hovered over the asteroid to determine the best spot to land. It finally made contact in September. The spacecraft is expected to depart December 2019.
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