Hayabusa-2 probe ready to "bombard" an asteroid

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Jaxa

The Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa-2 is about to explode an explosive charge on the asteroid that it is exploring.

The operation is designed to generate an artificial crater in the Ryugu asteroid, which the probe has been studying since June 2018.

Hayabusa-2 will then descend into the crater to collect immaculate samples of the asteroid that have not been exposed to the hostile environment of space.

The device is known as a small cabin impactor (SCI).

It is a conical container of 14 kg copper containing a plastic explosive.

The SCI must separate from Hayabusa-2 at 01:56 GMT Friday at an altitude of 500 m above the surface of Ryugu. At 0236 GMT, when the aircraft reaches an altitude of 3.5m, it will explode and drill a hole in the surface of the asteroid.

Meanwhile, Hayabusa-2 should have been wielding itself to hide from the other side of the asteroid, thus protecting the spacecraft from flying debris.

Along the way, he will deploy a small camera, called DCAM3. The camera will watch the explosion at a distance of about 1 km and transmit the images to its "mother ship".

Ryugu belongs to a particularly primitive type of space rock called the C-type asteroid. It is a relic from the beginnings of our solar system.

But millions, even billions of years of cosmic radiation bombardment are thought to alter the surfaces of these planetary building blocks. Scientists therefore want to obtain a sample that has not been modified by this process.

Sei-ichiro Watanabe, project scientist, said at the conference on global and lunar science held last month that the experiment "would also provide us with information on the resistance of the superficial layer of Ryugu".

This will help you understand how the asteroid was created because it is supposed to have been formed by debris that was projected onto a larger asteroid and then returned together to form a secondary object.

At a later date, scientists could order Hayabusa-2 to descend into the crater and take a blank sample of rock. But they will only do so if there is no risk of collision between the spacecraft and a rock or outcrop.

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