The Japanese spacecraft arrives at the asteroid after a nearly four-year space odyssey

By Elaine Lies

TOKYO (Reuters) – A Japanese space probe named after a hawk arrived on an asteroid 300 million kilometers from Earth Wednesday after a three and a half year trip on a mission to search for the origins of life.

The Hayabusa 2 took off in December 2014 from the Ryugu asteroid for a pioneering mission of taking samples that, according to scientists, will help reveal how life began. His round trip mission is expected to take six years.

"Everything went as planned," said a spokesman for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) at a press conference. "The probe has arrived at the asteroid".

Hayabusa 2, named for the peregrine falcon, will spend the next months orbiting 20 km above the asteroid and mapping its surface before landing. He will then use small explosives to blow up a crater on the surface and collect the resulting debris.

It is believed that asteroids formed at the dawn of the solar system and scientists say that Ryugu may contain organic matter that may have contributed to life on Earth.

Television footage showed that the control room was erupting under applause as the arrival of the probe was confirmed, with some researchers standing and smiling as they shook hands.

"We are mostly relieved, but there is now tension as to whether the main mission will be fine," said one official.

If all goes as planned, Hayabusa 2 should spend nearly 18 months near the asteroid and return to Earth with samples by the end of 2020, the year Tokyo hosts the Olympic Games. summer.

The first Hayabusa probe was unable to collect as much material as expected, but it still scored history by being the first probe to report samples of a different asteroid.

His seven year mission ended in 2010 when he pioneered over Australia before slamming into the desert.

The success with Hayabusa 2 would help the Japanese space program to surpass a bygone era that included an accident in 2016 in which the first of the three planned military communication satellites had been crashed during a flight from Japan to the European spaceport in French Guiana.

The first of these satellites finally exploded successfully in space in January 2017.

(Report by Elaine Lies, edited by Darren Schuettler)