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The Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa2 took this picture around midnight, Eastern Daylight Time, on September 21, 2018, as he deployed the two tiny MINERVA-II1 larvae to the surface of the asteroid Ryugu. The shadow of Hayabusa2 is clearly visible.
Credit: JAXA
Two tiny jumping robots began their historic attempt to land on a large asteroid in deep space.
The Japanese Hayabusa2 probe, which revolved around the Ryugu asteroid since the end of June, deployed two small rovers called MINERVA-II1A and MINERVA-II1B this morning around midnight (0400 GMT). (September 21st). The event occurred when the mother ship was a few hundred feet above the cluttered surface of Ryugu Blocks.
If everything goes as planned, the 2.4 pounds. (1.1 kg), the robots will soon join a very select club. To date, the only vessel to perform a soft touch on an asteroid is NASA's "Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous-Shoemaker" spacecraft, which landed on Eros in 2001 and the original Hayabusa probe. Itokawa in 2005. (Only one mission has already made a soft landing on a comet: in November 2014, the European Space Agency's Rosetta orbiter dropped a lander called Philae on 67P / Churyumov-Gerasimenko. ) [Japan’s Hayabusa2 Asteroid Ryugu Sample-Return Mission in Pictures]
MINERVA-II1A and MINERVA-II1B are 7 inches wide by 2.8 inches tall (18 by 7 centimeters) and carry a variety of scientific equipment, including temperature and optical sensors and seven cameras in total. Although the Hayabusa2 team calls them rovers, bantam gear will not roll like the Mars Explorer Curiosity; MINERVA-II1A and MINERVA-II1B will jump from place to place on the Ryugu surface, thanks to internal rotary engines.
"The gravity on the surface of Ryugu is very low, so a mobile powered by normal wheels or crawlers would float up as soon as it would have started to move," team members wrote. mission in a description of MINERVA-II1.
"Therefore, this jump mechanism was adopted to move on the surface of these small celestial bodies," they added. "The rover should stay in the air for up to 15 minutes after a single jump before landing and up to 15m [50 feet] horizontally. "
An illustration of the artist jumping routers from Hayabusa2, MINERVA-II1A (back) and MINERVA-II1B (foreground), exploring the surface of the Ryugu asteroid.
Credit: JAXA
MINERVA-II1A and MINERVA-II1B will perform these exploration leaps autonomously, looking for the path to follow, said Hayabusa2 team members.
This morning's maneuver launches an ambitious surface exploration campaign in Ryugu for the $ 150 million Hayabusa2 mission, launched in December 2014. In early October, the orbiter will deploy a 22-pound instrument. (10 kg) landing called MASCOT, built by the German Aerospace Center in collaboration with the French space agency CNES. And next year, another small hopper, the MINERVA-II2, will also tackle Ryugu.
The mother ship Hayabusa2 will also spiral down to the surface of the asteroid in 2019, capturing samples of a new crater that will explode with an (non-explosive) impactor. This virgin material, previously beneath the surface, is expected to arrive on Earth in a special return capsule in December 2020.
Scientists from laboratories around the world will then examine this cosmic dirt and gravel, learn more about the early days of the solar system, and the role that carbon-rich asteroids such as Ryugu have been able to bring to bear. Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said.
"MINERVA" is an abbreviation for "Micro Nano Experimental Robot Vehicle for Asteroid". The original MINERVA hopper flew aboard the JAXA Hayabusa Mission, which orbited around the Itokawa asteroid in 2005 and sent back a tiny sample of Earth rock to Earth in 2010; these previous missions explain the naming system "MINERVA-II" for Hayabusa2. (MINERVA did not pass his touchdown test on Itokawa more than ten years ago.)
"MASCOT" stands for "Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout".
Hayabusa2 is not the only mission of sampling asteroids operating in deep space. NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is an extension of its journey to the asteroid Bennu, 1,640 feet (500 meters) wide; the spacecraft is scheduled to arrive at Bennu on December 3rd and launch into orbit around the space rock on December 31st.
If all goes as planned, OSIRIS-REx (which is an abbreviation for "Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security Explorer-Regolith") will take a sample of Bennu in the middle of 2020, and this material will parachute on Earth in September. 2023. The objectives of the mission are broadly aligned with those of Hayabusa2.
Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @ michaeldwall and Google+. follow us @ Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
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