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KNOXVILLE, Tennessee – The Japanese probe Hayabusa2 is preparing to land on the Ryugu asteroid, where it will take a sample of the rock surface of the asteroid that will eventually be returned to Earth.
After limiting the possible landing sites for Hayabusa2, the mission scientists conducted a sampling repeat on Wednesday, October 24 at 10:47 pm. Masaki Fujimoto of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said at a press conference at the 50th meeting of the American Astronomical Agency Division of the Society for Planetary Sciences ( DPS).
At that time, the spacecraft descended to an altitude of 12 km above the surface of the asteroid and deployed a small target marker at the landing site, Fujimoto said. The probe will go to the surface to collect a sample at the earliest in January 2019, and this sample will land in Australia in 2020. [Japan’s Hayabusa2 Asteroid Ryugu Sample-Return Mission in Pictures]
[TD1-R3] The target marker (TM) is confirmed to be reflected in the image of the optical navigation camera – Wide Angle (ONC-W1). This image was taken after the TM landed on Ryugu's surface. The point in the green circle is the TM. Duration of the image: 10/25 11:47 JST, at an altitude of about 20 m. pic.twitter.com/Cf4IRKTFfF
– HAYABUSA2 @ JAXA (@ haya2e_jaxa) October 25, 2018
The Hayabusa2 mission has already deployed two small jumping rovers (MINERVA-II1A and MINERVA-II1B) and a German lander called the Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout (MASCOT) on Ryugu. While the MINERVA rovers are still scanning the surface of Ryugu, MASCOT's mission was short-lived and completed after just 17 hours and 7 minutes. MASCOT was designed to last only 16 hours on the surface of Ryugu.
"The goal of the mission is now to recover and restore a surface sample," said officials at the Planetary Science Institute, involved in the Hayabusa mission2, in a statement. For this phase of the mission to be successful, scientists had to choose a landing site that is not only interesting from a scientific point of view, but also safe for the spacecraft – which it turned out to be more difficult than the originally planned mission controllers.
When Hayabusa2 took his first detailed snapshot of Ryugu in June, scientists were "shocked" to find that it was essentially a pile of rubble rather than a smooth, dusty rock, such as the asteroid Itokawa. (which the original Hayabusa mission had visited in 2005) and Eros. Said Fujimoto. "It's the moment when we realized that the mission would not be easy," he said, adding that Ryugu's rocky surface was "not mission-friendly".
This view of the Ryugu asteroid is the highest resolution image ever taken of an asteroid. Hayabusa2 captured the image with its optical navigation camera on October 15, 2018 at an altitude of 42 meters.
Credit: JAXA / University of Tokyo / Kochi University / Rikkyo University / Nagoya University / Chiba Institute of Technology / Meiji University / Aizu University / AIST
Scientists working on Hayabusa2 were not prepared for the lack of safe landing sites on Ryugu, as they based their expectations on Ryugu asteroid on past experience, Fujimoto said. "It's not easy to reveal the stupidity we've been in, but we thought we had a good experience with Itokawa … and there was a smooth surface on the surface, and we thought it should be that way. could be a rocky part but there should be a smoother party and that was the expectation. "
"That's part of the reason we're exploring – to see the unexpected, go ahead and move forward and do what we intend to do: return a sample," said Deborah Domingue, Associate Researcher at Hayabusa2 at the Planetary Science Institute. in the press conference. "It never meets our expectations wherever we go, and that's what's exciting – it's the challenge."
The inhospitable terrain of Ryugu proved problematic when MASCOT came on Oct. 2 for a bumpy landing. While descending, the hopping rover crashed into a rock and rolled upside down with his instruments pointing in the space rather than down. At the press conference, Ralf Jaumann, lead investigator of the Hayabusa2 mission of the German Aerospace Center (DLR), said on the surface. Fortunately, the rock was "not too hard," Jaumann said, and the mission controllers were able to return the rover and conduct all the investigations as planned.
The target markers of Hayabusa2 are small white balls of about 10 centimeters in diameter. They are covered with a reflective film in order to make them visible by the Hayabusa2 probe, which will use them to navigate as it descends to the return phase of the mission's sample.
Credit: JAXA
To find potential sampling sites for Hayabusa2, the scientists created topographic models of the Ryugu surface using images of the MINERVA and MASCOT landers and searched for the smoothest areas on the surface of the surface. asteroid. "It's all over the rocks," said Lucille Le Corre, another participating scientist from the Planetary Science Institute. "There are not many areas that are smooth."
In addition to the images, scientists are using the Hayabusa2 thermal infrared imaging (TIR) instrument to learn more about the size and other properties of materials located on the surface of the asteroid . Specifically, TIR looks for grains of dust and dirt like those observed on other asteroids and on the moon.
The Hayabusa2 team began by choosing a square shaped landing area measuring approximately 180 meters wide. She recently reduced it to a circle of about 20 meters in diameter. The next step is to improve the navigation accuracy of the spacecraft "so that it can reach the same hole," said Fujimoto. Because Ryugu is about to bypass the sun, thus causing Hayabusa2's temporary loss of contact with the Earth, "it leaves the team two months to think about the details of the touchdown operations."
Email Hanneke Weitering at [email protected] or follow her. @hannekescience. Follow us on twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook. Original article on Space.com.
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