posted 10-25-2013 10:00 AM               

This thread is intended for comments and questions regarding the updates under: JAXA's Hayabusa2 asteroid sample mission.

Hayabusa 2, as a successor to JAXA's first Hayabusa mission to asteroid Itokawa, will explore asteroid 1993 JU3 Ryugu, collect samples and return them to Earth.

posted 10-25-2013 10:09 AM               

The device will be aboard the Hayabusa-2 space probe that is scheduled to take off in 2014 and rendezvous with an asteroid identified as 1999JU3 that orbits between Earth and Mars in 2018.

Once in position close to the asteroid, the space cannon will detach itself and remotely fire a 4lb metal projectile into the surface of the miniature planet.

"An artificial crater that can be created by the device is expected to be a small one, a few meters in diameter, but... by acquiring samples from the surface that is exposed by the collision, we can get fresh samples that are less weathered by the space environment or heat," the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said in a statement.

posted 12-02-2014 06:08 AM               

"They (the pieces) are part of the rocket that will transport the important Hayabusa 2 into space and return back to Earth, so we want to give them to the spectators," said an official of the Minamitane town government.

The part in question is the payload fairing of the 26th H2-A rocket. The fairing, located at the top of the structure, is made from aluminum alloy and shields the probe from the impact of pressure and heat as it rises into the cosmos.

Although the parts are usually processed as industrial waste after such missions are completed, the host town for the launch decided to take on the parts after blastoff.

...The debris will be cut into pieces measuring 5 by 4 by 3 centimeters and given to spectators as mementos by lottery.

Town officials anticipate that around 300 of the gifts will be available, depending on how much of the aluminum can be retrieved from the sea.

posted 12-03-2014 06:18 PM            

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries launched the Hayabusa 2 asteroid sample mission on Tuesday (Dec. 22) at 11:22 p.m. EST (0422 GMT Dec. 3) atop a H-2A rocket from the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan.

posted 06-14-2018 10:29 AM               

Hayabusa 2 has already traveled almost two billion miles to reach Ryugu since its launch in 2014, with less than a thousand left to go—and it's getting closer by the day; on Monday, JAXA posted a pair of images of the asteroid as seen from the probe's onboard camera.

posted 08-16-2018 12:13 PM            

The actual images of Ryugu are remarkably similar to the artist's impression shown at the top of this thread. Perhaps the artist was psychic, but on a more serious note, the pre-launch predictions of Ryugu's approximate shape and size seem to show that it belongs to a type of rapidly-rotating small asteroid which includes Bennu, the target for NASA's OSIRIS-REx, so it will be very interesting to see the Bennu images later this year for comparison.

posted 09-12-2018 02:46 PM               

Hayabusa 2 is now rising after stopping its descent. Spacecraft status is normal. At an altitude of about 600m, descent was autonomously stopped, likely due to the distance measurement by the laser altimeter (LIDAR) becoming impossible due to the low reflectance of Ryugu.

The spacecraft is now returning to the home position (about 20km from the centre of Ryugu). From tomorrow, we will revise the descent procedure, including reviewing the LIDAR settings.

The first touchdown by Hayabusa2 to collect samples from the asteroid surface is planned for the end of October. The first rehearsal for this operation will be held from September 10-12.

"Touchdown 1 Rehearsal 1" is abbreviated to TD1-R1. At TD1-R1, the Hayabusa2 will approach the surface of Ryugu to an altitude of less than 40 m. The spacecraft will then rise without landing.

The purpose of this rehearsal is to monitor the operation of the spacecraft during touchdown and investigate the safety of the touchdown candidate sites by imaging the surface of Ryugu in their vicinity from a low altitude.

posted 09-25-2018 10:03 PM            

We have confirmed both rovers landed on the surface of asteroid Ryugu. The two rovers are in good condition and are transmitting images and data.

posted 09-25-2018 10:09 PM               

By September 22, images and data confirmed that both rovers had landed on Ryugu and that at least one was hopping and moving. We published a press release on September 22, releasing the situation of MINERVA-II1 and the acquired images. The Project Members were also very impressed by these images sent from MINERVA-II1.

posted 09-26-2018 07:50 AM            

If they tell us: "We did our best, but that's all there is from these two landers," I would say, "Well done, nice try, better luck with the third lander." It's the absence of clarification which is annoying.

posted 10-02-2018 10:29 PM               

After checking the data sent from Hayabusa2, we can confirm that the MASCOT separated from the spacecraft as planned. Hayabusa2 is now ascending and the state of the spacecraft is normal.

MASCOT has a lithium primary battery that will last approximately 16 hours. This is about two asteroid days on Ryugu! Once the battery runs out, the lander operation will end.

posted 10-03-2018 10:05 AM               

I've been on asteroid Ryugu for a little over 12 hours conducting experiments non-stop! Now I'm working with MicrOmega and MARA!

posted 10-03-2018 11:02 AM               

I've taken measurements with all my experiments, and my battery is holding up! Still going strong!

posted 10-05-2018 10:59 AM               

Check this out! I took this picture when I was almost on Ryugu's surface. Look at how sunlight is reflected off me. What a dark surface!

posted 10-07-2018 02:18 PM            

I'm actually not sure if any of my taxes went via ESA to the German and French controllers of MASCOT, but there must surely be French and German taxpayers who would like to see the results of their contributions.

posted 10-15-2018 02:00 AM               

It looks like there is a lot of lens distortion from the images shown so far, because the focus shift across each image is quite bad. It may take some time to process and correct the images, if at all possible.

posted 10-15-2018 12:45 PM            

The problem lies with the MASCOT images, which are, apparently, being jealously guarded by the Germans and the French. After 12 days, and counting, I am unaware of any release of images from the surface of Ryugu by the more substantial and capable MASCOT lander. Several images have been released showing views above the surface, but not on the surface.

posted 02-17-2019 07:44 PM               

Locations on the surface of Ryugu have been named!

Place names for locations on the surface of Ryugu were discussed by Division F (Planetary Systems and Bioastronomy) of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature (hereafter IAU WG) and approved in December 2018. We will introduce the place names in this article and the background to their selection.

As the appearance of Ryugu gradually became clear during the approach phase in June 2018, we used nicknames amongst the Hayabsua2 Project team to distinguish regions of the terrain. (For example, the crater now named "Urashima" was referred to as the Death Star crater in Star Wars!) However, in order to introduce Ryugu to the world, it is necessary to have names that are intentionally recognized rather than nicknames, which can be referred to in scientific papers and other articles. Therefore, the discussion regarding naming the Ryugu surface topology began within the team.

To name a place on a celestial body in the Solar System, you must first decide on a theme. For example, the theme for places on Venus is the "names of goddesses". During discussions between the domestic and overseas project members, suggestions such as "names of castles around the world", "word for 'dragon' in different languages" and the "names of deep-sea creatures" were proposed for the place name theme on Ryugu. After an intense debate, the theme was selected to be "names that appear in stories for children" and a theme proposal was put to the IAU WG. The proposal was accepted on September 25, after which the discussion moved to selecting the topographical features to be named and the choice of name.

Names cannot be attributed to any location. Instead, there are restrictions on the places that can be assigned an official name involving considerations such as scientific importance or size on the celestial body. With this in mind, volunteers from the project members as well as planetary geology experts (hereinafter referred to as the Place Name Core Members ※１) discussed the place selection and completed the application forms for naming based on the exploration data. On October 12, we proposed 13 place names to the IAU WG. After additional discussion with the WG, 9 were accepted as proposed by the team and the remaining 4 names were approved after an amendment suggested by the IAU.

The surface of celestial bodies has a range of different topologies. We applied to give names to four different topology types on the Ryugu surface. The first type is "dorsum" which originates from the Latin for peak or ridge. The second type is "crater" which are familiar structures on the Moon and asteroids. Then "fossa" meaning grooves or trenches and finally the Latin word "saxum" for the rocks and boulders that are a main characteristic of the Ryugu terrain. Saxum is actually a new classification of terrain type that we applied to introduce due to the nature of Ryugu.

Numerous boulders are distributed on the surface of Ryugu. Regardless of where you look, there are rocks, rocks and more rocks. This is a major characteristic of Ryugu and continues to make plans for the touchdown operation of the spacecraft difficult. Additionally, spectroscopic observations revealed that the giant boulder (Otohime saxum) at the south pole has not only a substantial size, but also a distinct visible light spectrum that reveals materials and surface conditions that are different from the surrounding areas. Since this boulder is the most important topographical feature for understanding the formation history of Ryugu, the Project strongly hoped to name it. However, there was no precedent for boulder nomenclature and even the name type did not exist (during the exploration of the first Hayabusa mission, naming the huge boulder protruding from asteroid Itokawa was not allowed). We therefore proposed the type name for boulders at the same time as applying for the place names. Since terrain type names are usually Latin, we proposed "saxum" (meaning rocks and stones in Latin) as the type name for boulders. The IAU accepted this nomenclature for boulders with a few conditions (such as the boulder must be 1% or more of the diameter of the celestial body) and the type name that we suggested was adopted (!). This is how the new terrain type "saxum" was born.

Figure 1 shows a map of Ryugu with the place names labelled. Additionally, Figure 2 shows the location of the places on images of Ryugu taken from four different directions. In these figures, the north pole of Ryugu is at the image top. Please keep in mind that the north pole of Ryugu is in the same direction as the south pole on Earth, as Ryugu rotates in the opposite direction. Table 1 (see here) shows a list of the place names.

Above: Map of Ryugu showing the place names. Trinitas and Alice's Wonderland are nicknames of the MINERVA-II1 and MASCOT landing sites, respectively, and not place names recognized by the IAU.

Above: The location of place names on Ryugu.

posted 02-17-2019 07:49 PM               

On February 6, we held a press briefing at the JAXA Tokyo office to announce the touchdown time as February 22 around 8:00am JST [6:00 p.m. EST Feb. 21 or 0000 GMT Feb 22] and the touchdown location.

The location is an area named L08-E1, just beside the target marker landing. Because the width is only about 6m [20 feet] here, very precise navigation guidance is necessary, but our examination has confirmed that this is possible.

posted 02-20-2019 10:02 PM               

We began the spacecraft descent operation today (2/21) at 06:30 JST. At the moment, we are still in the judgment phase of deciding whether to begin descent and the spacecraft remains at the home position at an altitude of 20km. The spacecraft's condition is normal.

Today (2/21) 12: 36 (JST), the decision to begin the touchdown operation was declared as "GO". While the descent start time is delayed about 5 hours, the speed to 5km altitude will be increased slightly so there is no change to the scheduled time for touchdown.

posted 02-21-2019 05:11 PM               

2/22 at 7:49 JST. The Doppler data showed the behaviour as expected and cheers went up with a clap!

2/22 at 7:48 JST. We have confirmed the spacecraft began to rise as planned. This was announced by the Project Manager and everyone clapped again.

2/22 at 8:42 JST. The following has been confirmed at Gate 5:

• Projectile was command to fire.
  
• Normal sequence.
  
• Spacecraft state is normal.

Based on this, we determined touchdown was successful! A detailed analysis will now be done.

posted 03-05-2019 09:43 AM               

One small hand of mankind has reached for a new, little "star."

This is an image sequence captured by CAM-H during the touchdown of Hayabusa2 last month. This camera was built and installed using donations from the public and it has now captured a historical moment for all of us. Thank you everyone, for your support!

posted 08-18-2020 10:38 PM               

The Hayabusa2 re-entry capsule will return to Earth in South Australia on December 6, 2020 (Japan Time and Australian Time). The landing site will be the Woomera Prohibited Area.

posted 12-05-2020 06:38 PM               

Samples are on their way for analysis at the Woomera Test Range.

posted 07-01-2021 04:10 PM               

First Sample of Asteroid Ryugu Arrives at NASA Johnson

NASA recently received its first sample of asteroid Ryugu, which was returned to Earth last December by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's (JAXA) Hayabusa2 spacecraft. This is one of the first samples to leave Japan for preliminary investigation.

As deputy leader of the mineralogy-petrology subteam for the preliminary analysis effort, Mike Zolensky was one of the first scientists to examine the sample to determine its basic nature. Alongside Zolensky, Jangmi Han from the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science Division, and James Martinez of the Structural Engineering Division at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston worked together to complete an investigation of the sample.

Sample analyses were performed in the Scanning Electron Microscopy Lab in Johnson's Structural Engineering Division. This was successfully completed within five days.

Zolensky is one of a hundred investigators worldwide to receive a sample from JAXA. Preliminary sample analyses are continuing at Johnson.

Studying carbonaceous asteroids like Ryugu could help scientists better understand how the solar system formed.