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A Japanese spacecraft is just a few hours from a historic attempt to land two tiny jumping robots on the big asteroid Ryugu, and you can see almost real-time photos of the action of the flights space.
The Hayabusa2 probe, which runs around Ryugu since the end of June, is expected to deploy a 2.4-pound pair. (1.1 kilograms) "rovers" between midnight and 12:30 pm EDT on Friday (September 21st: 4:00 am to 4:30 pm GMT).
The mother ship Hayabusa2 has already begun to descend to Ryugu before deployment, and the spacecraft takes pictures of the asteroid for navigation purposes. And we are lucky: the mission team and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) publish these photos in near real time here: http: //www.hayabusa2.jaxa. jp / en / gallery / onc / nav20180920 /
At the present time, the images descend to Earth every 29 minutes, depending on the timestamps. Ryugu grows larger and larger with each photo as Hayabusa2 gets closer to the 900 meter wide rock.
The Ryugu asteroid, seen by the Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa2 on June 26, 2018, just a day before his arrival on the space rock.
Credit: JAXA, University of Tokyo, Kochi University, Rikkyo University, Nagoya University, Chiba Institute of Technology, Meiji University, Aizu University, AIST
The two small disc-shaped robots that will soon separate from the orbiter are called MINERVA-II1A and MINERVA-II1B. Each measures 7 inches wide by 2.8 inches tall (18 by 7 centimeters) and is filled with scientific equipment including temperature and optical sensors and a suite of cameras. (The JAXA authorities reported that seven cameras were spread over the two robots).
Although the Hayabusa2 team calls them the rovers, these little guys will jump, rather than roll, from place to place on the Ryugu surface, collecting a variety of data along the way.
And other landings are coming soon. Hayabusa2 is expected to deploy a larger lander called MASCOT the first week of October and another small hopper, MINERVA-II2, next year. The mother ship itself will also make several incursions to the surface in 2019 to seize asteroids that will be returned to Earth in December 2020.
"MINERVA" means "experimental micro-nano robotic vehicle for asteroid". And about this case "II": a MINERVA hopper flew aboard the original Hayabusa mission, which arrived at the Itokawa asteroid in 2005. The original MINERVA failed to make its attempt 39; landing.
Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @ michaeldwall and Google+. follow us @ Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
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