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The Japanese space shuttle Hayabusa2 successfully dropped the MASCOT lander on the Ryugu asteroid on October 3, 2018 (Japan time). Left: Illustration of the MASCOT undercarriage separating from the mother ship Hayabusa2. Right: Illustration of a MASCOT landing on the surface of the Ryugu asteroid.
Credit: JAXA
Two tiny robots should now have a companion on the surface of the big asteroid Ryugu.
A shoebox-sized landing gear, called the Asteroid Surface Screen (MASCOT), was separated from its parent ship, the Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa2, on Tuesday night at 21:57. HAE (0157 3 Oct. GMT) will descend on the asteroid 326 million kilometers from the Earth.
Hayabusa2 was about 51 meters above the friable surface of Ryugu at the time. If everything went as planned, MASCOT hit the dirt of the asteroid only minutes after deployment and rebounded a few times in an extremely low gravity environment before stopping. [Japan’s Hayabusa2 Asteroid Ryugu Mission in Pictures]
"We do not know in which direction and for how long MASCOT will bounce back after the initial touchdown, and we hope of course that it will not end up on too soft ground or get stuck in a crevasse where it will not Could not recover, "said Christian Krause, MASCOT Operations Manager at the German Aerospace Center (known by his German acronym DLR), in a pre-deployment statement. (DLR builds MASCOT, in collaboration with CNES, the French space agency).
"However, we are optimistic because we have done many field scenarios and sent the corresponding command sequences to MASCOT," Krause said.
According to JAXA and DLR officials, Hayabusa2 was to release the MASCOT undercarriage at 9:58 pm. EDT (0158 GMT), so the rollout was almost exactly on time. In an update posted on Twitter around 23:20. EDT (3:20 GMT Oct. 3), JAXA officials confirmed that MASCOT had managed to separate from Hayabusa2.
"After checking the data sent by Hayabusa2, we can confirm that the MASCOT is separated from the spacecraft as expected", JAXA officials said. "Hayabusa2 is going up and the status of the spaceship is normal." A few minutes later, a later update revealed the real time of separation, as well as the beach between Hayabusa2 and the asteroid.
Krause and his colleagues can also benefit from the experience of MINERVA-II1A and MINERVA-II1B, two 2.4 lb. (1.1 kg) rovers that rolled out from Hayabusa2 on September 21st. The two small jumping robots managed their hit and began to explore the surface of the Ryugu, 3000 feet (900 feet) wide.
The Japanese space shuttle Hayabusa2 descends to the Ryugu asteroid in the night of October 2, 2018, before the deployment of the MASCOT lander. This photo was taken at an altitude of about 430 feet (130 meters) above Ryugu.
Credit: JAXA
Like the Japanese-built MINERVA-II1A and MINERVA-II1B, the autonomous MASCOT can move in jumps, which it does by manipulating a metal "swinging arm" inside its body. The LG can also use this arm to straighten on the Ryugu surface – an important feature, as MASCOT must be vertical to collect data and transmit it to Hayabusa2.
The LG will collect this data using four instruments: a camera, a radiometer, a spectrometer and a magnetometer. And MASCOT will have to act quickly; his battery should die only 16 hours after the touch of the wheel on Ryugu (and the lander does not have the ability to recharge).
The $ 150 million Hayabusa2 mission was launched in December 2014 and orbited around Ryugu at the end of June this year. The mother ship may still have a rover deployment to carry: it still carries the "optional" MINERVA-II2 hopper, which could reach Ryugu's surface next year.
And the orbiter itself will be heading to space in 2019 too, after sending a non-explosive impactor to Ryugu. Hayabusa2 will take immaculate, previously underground samples of the newly created crater; this material is expected to descend to Earth in a return capsule in December 2020.
The candidate area of the landing site MASCOT (light blue area) on the asteroid Ryugu. As MASCOT should bounce several times after the first touch of the ground, a relatively large area has been selected.
Credit: AXA, University of Tokyo, Kochi University, Rikkyo University, Nagoya University, Chiba Institute of Technology, Meiji University, Aizu University, AIST, CNES, DLR
The data collected by the Ryugu mission and by the scientists who examined the returned sample should provide insight into the beginnings of the solar system and the role that carbon-rich asteroids such as Ryugu might have played in the future. Emergence of life on Earth, said members of Hayabusa2 team.
NASA itself has a mission of sampling asteroids running, with similar objectives. The OSIRIS-REx probe is expected to orbit the asteroid Bennu (1500 feet) wide (500 m) on December 31 and return samples to Earth in September 2023.
Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook orGoogle+. Originally published on Space.com.
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