The Japanese asteroid probe Hayabusa2 ready for the final touch

The Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa2 began Wednesday to descend for its final landing on a remote asteroid, hoping to collect samples that could illuminate the evolution of the solar system.

"At 9:58, we made the decision" Go "for the second hit of the probe Hayabusa2," said the JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) in a statement.

In the early afternoon, JAXA said the spacecraft had descended about five kilometers and was on track to land on the asteroid Ryugu on Thursday, about 300 million kilometers from Earth.

If successful, it will be the second time he lands on the desolate asteroid as part of a complex mission that also involves sending rovers and robots.

The mission hopes to collect under the surface of the asteroid immaculate materials that could give insight into the nature of the solar system at its birth, about 4.6 billion years ago.

In April, to touch these crucial materials, an "impactor" was pulled from Hayabusa2 to Ryugu as part of a risky process that created a crater on the surface of the asteroid and stirred materials that had never been exposed to the atmosphere.

"It's the second touchdown, but touch is a challenge, whether it's the first or the second," Yuichi Tsuda, project manager Hayabusa2, told the press.

"The whole team will do their best so that we can carry out the operation," he said.

"Extremely attractive materials"

Hayabusa2's first hit was in February, when he landed briefly on Ryugu and fired a shot into the surface to throw dust for collection before resuming his holding position.

The second touch requires special preparations because any problem could mean that the probe would lose valuable materials already collected during its first landing.

A photo of the crater taken by Hayabusa2's camera shows that parts of the asteroid's surface are covered with materials "obviously different" from the rest of the surface, told reporters the director of the mission, Makoto Yoshikawa.

The probe should make a brief touch of the ground on an area located about twenty meters from the center of the crater to collect unidentified materials suspected to be "ejected" from the explosion.

"It would be safe to say that extremely attractive materials are near the crater," Tsuda said.

The touchdown will be the last important part of Hayabusa's mission2 and, when the spacecraft returns to Earth next year, scientists hope to learn more about the history of the solar system and even about the origin of life through his samples.

"I'm really looking forward to analyzing these materials," Yoshikawa said.

From the size of a large refrigerator and equipped with solar panels to keep it powered, Hayabusa2 is the successor to the first JAXA Asteroid Explorer, Hayabusa – the Japanese for Falcon.

This probe came back with dust samples taken from a smaller potato-shaped asteroid in 2010, despite many setbacks during its epic seven-year odyssey, and was hailed as a scientific triumph.

Hayabusa2 observes Ryugu's surface with his camera and detection equipment, but has also sent two tiny MINERVA-II robots and the French-German MASCOT robot to facilitate surface observation.

His photos of Ryugu, which means "dragon palace" in Japanese and refers to a castle at the bottom of the ocean in an ancient Japanese tale, show that the asteroid has a rough surface full of rocks.

Launched in December 2014, the Hayabusa2 mission costs around 30 billion yen ($ 270 million) and is expected to return to Earth with its samples in 2020.

But his mission has already made history, including with the creation of the crater on the surface of Ryugu.

In 2005, NASA's Deep Impact project managed to create an artificial crater on a comet, but only for observation purposes.

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© 2019 AFP