hayabusa2 mission parts free sample

Asteroids are made up of rocky material that is left over from the formation of our solar system [1]. This material holds the key to unlocking information about the history of the planets and our Sun. Hayabusa2 is a spacecraft that collected samples from asteroid Ryugu (a carbonaceous asteroid that is rich in water, carbon and organic compounds [1]) and was launched by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). Samples were returned to Earth in December 2020, and 10 percent of the collected material is currently housed in a state-of-the-art laboratory at NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) dedicated to Ryugu material [1]. Because these samples are so precious and rare, it is important to keep them free from Earth contamination.

In March of 2019, a massive construction project began to provide curation facilities to meet the needs of the incoming Ryugu collection for Hayabusa2. The Hayabusa2 Curation facilities at JSC will provide laboratories to safely house the precious asteroid samples as well as facilities to manipulate samples, perform sample preparation and process samples into and out of the labs for future studies by the scientific community.

The Hayabusa2 samples provided to NASA by JAXA include 23-millimeter sized grains and 4 containers with finer material. Samples will be stored in a nitrogen desiccator and separated into nitrogen sealed transfer containers inside of a nitrogen glovebox. Small Ryugu particles will be handled and prepared (e.g., ultra-thin sections for scanning electron microscopy (SEM) or transmission electron microscopy (TEM)) using an Axis Pro micromanipulator and Leica EM UC7 ultramicrotome. Analyzing samples at the atomic scale will provide greater insight into the origins of the solar system and the ingredients that could have given rise to life on Earth. All the curation preparation for these sample collections is essential to ongoing research and efforts to understand our solar system, both now and for future generations.

The JAXA Hayabusa2 spacecraft returned 5 g of material from the surface of a primitive C-type asteroid, 162173 Ryugu on December 6, 2020. One of the sample collections targeted

material exposed by the creation of an artificial crater that the Hayabusa2 spacecraft produced with a small "carry-on impactor". The spacecraft also deposited small landers

The Hayabusa2 mission complements the Hayabusa mission to asteroid Itokawa and the NASA OSIRIS-REx mission to asteroid 101955 Bennu, providing opportunities to study asteroidal

material with well-known geological context in the laboratory. The scientific goals of the Hayabusa2 and OSIRIS-REx missions are to understand the origins and histories of primitive,

organic-rich asteroids and the formation of the planets. Preliminary studies of the Hayabusa2 samples show that the Ryugu regolith contains abundant water-rich minerals, organic

matter, and high-temperature minerals that formed in the solar nebula. In December 2021, NASA received 540 mg of the Hayabusa2 samples that were hand-carried by JAXA curation staff

Curators at JSC will prepare a catalogue of the properties of fine-grained materials and larger particles that comprise NASA"s Hayabusa2 samples. This catalogue will be published on

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Hayabusa2 mission dropped off its sample collection capsule before moving on to the next part of its extended mission: visiting more asteroids.

Hayabusa2 launched on December 3, 2014, and arrived at the near-Earth asteroid Ryugu in June 2018. The spacecraft collected one sample from the asteroid’s surface on February 22, 2019, then fired a copper “bullet” into the asteroid to create a 33-foot wide impact crater. A sample was collected from this crater on July 11, 2019.

The agency’s first Hayabusa mission returned samples from the asteroid Itokawa to Earth in June 2010, but scientists said that due to failure of the spacecraft’s sampling device, they were only able to retrieve micrograms of dust from the asteroid.

Since Hayabusa2 isn’t returning to Earth, it ejected the 35-pound sample return capsule as it swung by our planet at a distance of 136,701 miles. Then, the spacecraft changed its course to travel beyond Earth and move along with its extended mission.

“Just spotted #hayabusa2 from #ISS! Unfortunately not bright enough for handheld camera, but enjoyed watching capsule! Thanks Houston & Tsukuba for pointing information!!!”

Just spotted #hayabusa2 from #ISS! Unfortunately not bright enough for handheld camera, but enjoyed watching capsule! Thanks Houston & Tsukuba for pointing information!!!— NOGUCHI, Soichi 野口　聡一（のぐち　そういち） (@Astro_Soichi) December 5, 2020

The Australian government granted JAXA permission to land its capsule in the Woomera Prohibited Area in South Australia. This remote area is used by Australia’s Department of Defence for testing.

Hayabusa2 will fly by three asteroids between 2026 and 2031, eventually reaching the rapidly rotating micro-asteroid 1998 KY26 in July 2031 millions of miles from Earth. It will be the first flyby of this type of asteroid.

“I anticipate that the Hayabusa2 samples of asteroid Ryugu will be very similar to the meteorite that fell in Australia near Murchison, Victoria, more than 50 years ago,” said Trevor Ireland, professor in the Australian National University Research School of Earth Sciences and a member of the Hayabusa2 science team in Woomera, in a statement.

The NASA OSIRIS-REx mission recently collected a sample from another near-Earth asteroid, Bennu, that is similar in composition to Ryugu. In fact, based on early data from both missions, scientists working on both missions believe it’s possible these two asteroids once belonged to the same larger parent body before it was broken apart by an impact.

A fireball hurtled across the sky on December 5th – the sample return capsule from the Hayabusa2 asteroid mission by JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency). The capsule landed in Woomera, a remote location in the Australian Outback. Earlier this month, the capsule’s sample containers revealed fine grain topsoil from asteroid 162173 Ryugu. A second sample container has since been opened that contains chunks up to an entire centimeter in size.

These larger fragments are thought to be pieces of bedrock from Ryugu. They were collected during Hayabusa2’s second touchdown in July 2019 to collect subsurface soil. Topsoil was collected on the first touchdown in February of 2019. Hayabusa2 was able to make multiple touchdowns on the surface because Ryugu only experiences microgravity being a relatively small asteroid only 1 kilometer in diameter.

The subsurface soil collection in July 2019 was achieved by literally bombing the surface of Ryugu with the equivalent of an armour piercing anti-tank projectile. Hayabusa2 deployed a free-flying gun 500m from Ryugu’s surface while itself moving to a safe location to avoid being hit by debris. Hayabusa2 also deployed a detachable camera which remained to watch the impact while Hayabusa2 was out of harm’s way. The gun then detonated a explosive, launching a 2.5kg copper round at the surface.

Samples of soil and gases have yielded more material than the Hayabusa2 team had anticipated which is great for follow-up research. The team will analyze the soil to learn more about the asteroid itself and gain insights to the early history of our Solar System. Asteroids like Ryugu are floating time capsules orbiting our Sun with a record of the Solar System’s past. Blasting Ryugu revealed soils that are shielded from solar radiation and the surrounding Solar System environment – essentially a preserved state from the asteroid’s formation billions of years ago. Ryugu was chosen as a target because it is a “C-Type” or carbonaceous asteroid – primordial stone from the early Solar System.

This video is an extract from yesterday’s press conference, with Hayabusa2 Project Manager Yuichi Tsuda confirming samples from Ryugu in the capsule! pic.twitter.com/hrhbiD6EIf— [email protected] (@haya2e_jaxa) December 16, 2020

We’ve also learned more about Ryugu the asteroid itself. In addition to soil sample collection, Hayabusa2 landed 4 different rovers on the surface. Rather than rolling around on wheels, these “hopped” using spinning masses to torque themselves off the surface in low gravity.

After retrieving the samples, Hayabusa2 completed a 13 month return journey to Earth. At a distance of 220,000km the probe released a capsule containing the gas and soil samples which entered Earth’s atmosphere on Dec 5th travelling at 12km/s creating a long-tailed fireball. Both the outbound journey to Ryugu and the return journey logged a total of 5.24 BILLION km. The solar system is really, really big. The containers were located by several retrieval teams in the Australian Outback.

This isn’t the end of Hayabusa2’s mission. Having completed its primary mission, the probe is now headed to rendezvous with another asteroid, 1998KY26scheduled for July 2031. 1998KY26is much smaller than Ryugu at only 30m in diameter and is considered a rapidly rotating micro-asteroid making one rotation every 10.7 minutes. Hayabusa2’s rendezvous will mark the first visit to one these rapidly rotating objects as well as the smallest object in the Solar System to be visited by a spacecraft.  JAXA isn’t finished sampling rocky worlds either. A mission is planned for the mid 2020’s to sample the Martian moon Phobos.

The Hayabusa2 spacecraft launched in 2014, bound for a near-Earth asteroid called Ryugu. The mission arrived at Ryugu in 2018 and spent about a year and a half observing and sampling the asteroid before leaving last year to deposit its sample capsule in Earth"s atmosphere. On Dec. 5, that capsule landed in the Woomera Prohibited Area in Australia; scientists with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), which runs the mission, then flew the capsule to Japan.

On Monday (Dec. 14), mission personnel got their first look inside the capsule. "We confirmed black grains thought to be from Ryugu were inside," mission representatives wrote on Twitter. "This is outside the main chambers, and likely particles attached to the sample catcher entrance."

Scientists later opened one of the three sample chambers and confirmed that it contained a fair amount of asteroid dust. Those chambers hold the real treasures: they are where the Hayabusa2 spacecraft directed the pieces of Ryugu it snagged during two collection maneuvers.

It looks like Japan"s Hayabusa2 spacecraft has snagged its second souvenir from asteroid Ryugu, marking one of the last major milestones of the probe"s visit.

Today"s (July 10) maneuver was a calculated risk, as mission staff sought to weigh the scientific value of a subsurface sample with the possibility that failure would jeopardize the sample that the team believes is on board the spacecraft. Now, Hayabusa2 has just one more rover to deploy on the space rock before it departs at the end of the year.

The maneuver stretched on for hours as the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency"s (JAXA) Hayabusa2 slowly lowered itself to the surface. At 100 feet (30 meters) above the surface, the spacecraft spotted the bright, white target marker it had dropped during a preparatory procedure.

Finally, at about 9:15 p.m. EDT (0115 GMT on July 11), Hayabusa2 touched down, fired a tantalum bullet into the space rock and — if all went according to plan — collected a bit of the resulting debris. That debris should be extra-special — not just any space rock, but pristine material dug out from below the surface of the space rock by the formation of the crater.

But underneath these shells, asteroids contain the rubble left over from the birth of the planets. That"s why scientists hope that today"s procedure in particular will help them understand how the solar system formed: by allowing them to not just analyze the crater that Hayabusa2 created on the surface but also get that rock into labs here on Earth.

The Hayabusa2 spacecraft was designed with three compartments for sample storage. Mission staff believed two of those compartments were already holding pieces of Ryugu; now they hope the third one does as well.

But until the spacecraft makes its way back to Earth and scientists can get inside that sample storage system, they aren"t sure what"s in there. Once the samples arrive, the team will first weed out anything from the spacecraft"s operations; the metals of the bomb and bullets used during the mission were chosen because they do not exist on asteroids and so will be easy to identify and discard.

Then, it"s all about the asteroid science, whatever that turns out to be. JAXA ran into trouble during the sampling portion of Hayabusa2"s predecessor mission and ended up with minuscule grains of an asteroid called Itokawa in 2010. Yet scientists have still made discoveries based on that dust. For example, they found that there is water on the space rock and that Itokawa seems to be built from rubble formed during a large collision. If Hayabusa2 has grabbed larger hunks of asteroid, that"s more material for more science.

Of course, all that will have to wait until the spacecraft makes its journey back to Earth. It has one more task to accomplish first: deploying a small rover, called MINERVA-II2, later this summer. Then, in November or December, Hayabusa2 will head home, delivering its bounty toward the end of next year.

The spacecraft in possession of this newly acquired asteroid material is Hayabusa-2, operated by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). It’s the successor to JAXA’s original Hayabusa mission, which was the first to return samples of an asteroid to Earth in 2010. Launched in 2014, Hayabusa-2 traveled through space for three and a half years, arriving at an asteroid named Ryugu in June 2018. Ever since then, Hayabusa-2 has been hanging around Ryugu, analyzing its surface and practicing for today’s big sample grab.

Now, Hayabusa-2 will hold onto that material until it leaves Ryugu and returns to Earth. And when these samples arrive at our planet, they could tell us a bit more about what our cosmic neighborhood was like billions of years ago. “From a scientific perspective, it’s going back to the dawn of the solar system,” Dante Lauretta, the principal investigator for NASA’s asteroid sample return mission OSIRIS-REx, who has worked with the Hayabusa-2 team, tells The Verge. “These asteroids are the first rocks that formed around the Sun before the planets existed.”

To make sure this sample grab went as smoothly as possible, JAXA did multiple dress rehearsals, during which they lowered the spacecraft very close to the spot on Ryugu where the team wanted to grab a sample. Hayabusa-2 even deployed two tiny rovers onto the surface of the asteroid in September, to collect data about its environment. The terrain of Ryugu turned out to be much rockier than JAXA imagined, and so the mission team decided to do some extra tests to make sure everything would still work. The abundance of caution meant delaying the scheduled sampling date from October until today.

In the meantime, today’s success could be used to ensure that Lauretta’s mission, OSIRIS-REx, is also a success. NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft launched in September 2016 and arrived at an asteroid Bennu late last year. Sometime next year, OSIRIS-REx will also grab a sample from Bennu, though with a much different kind of instrument than what Hayabusa-2 used. Rather than shoot the asteroid with a projectile, OSIRIS-REx will blow highly pressurized gas on the surface of Bennu, which will hopefully cause rocks to bounce into a collecting plate.

The OSIRIS-REx mission team will prepare extensively for this, but they still don’t know exactly what it will be like to touch the asteroid. “What is the response of that surface?” asks Lauretta. “That’s been the biggest uncertainty that we’ve tried to model.” Lauretta hopes that the Hayabusa-2 team can provide some insight into that.

There are pros and cons to both sites. L08-B1 is 12 meters wide at its narrowest point, which gives Hayabusa2 plenty of margin (the spacecraft measures 6 meters wide across its solar panels). But despite being free of larger boulders, L08-B1 is scattered with rocks about 60 centimeters in size. The spacecraft"s sampler horn is only a meter long.

The team also says that they can be confident of the spacecraft"s position roughly within about 1 meter. Stop and think about that for a moment: Ryugu is 354 million kilometers from Earth. It takes radio signals, traveling at the speed of light, 20 minutes to travel that far. And Hayabusa2 can touch down on Ryugu with an accuracy of a single meter.

Another advantage of L08-E1 is that it"s closer to the target marker the spacecraft dropped, just a few meters away, meaning Hayabusa2 can keep it in sight for longer as it descends to collect a sample. The team has decided not to drop another target marker, according to Makoto Yoshikawa, the Hayabusa2 project mission manager.

Japan’s mission to bring asteroid dust back to Earth has succeeded. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) confirmed on 14 December that a capsule from spacecraft Hayabusa2, which landed in an Australian desert last week, contained black grains from asteroid Ryugu.

“The confirmation of sample is a very important milestone for us and for JAXA,” says Yuichi Tsuda, project manager for the mission at JAXA, in Sagamihara.

“Images that Hayabusa2 took during its landing operations made us confident that the spacecraft collected Ryugu samples,” wrote Satoru Nakazawa, deputy manager of the mission, in an e-mail while in Woomera, Australia. But the team couldn’t know for sure until they disassembled the capsule and saw the dark dust.

Once the capsule is fully unsealed, possibly later today, JAXA scientists will measure the material’s mass and study its composition and structure. They hope to have collected at least 0.1 grams of material, says Yoshikawa Makoto, mission manager for Hayabusa2 at JAXA.

Hayabusa2 collected the samples over a year and a half of poking and prodding Ryugu—a small asteroid shaped like a squashed sphere, peppered with giant boulders. Ryugu is a C-type, or carbon-rich, asteroid, which scientists think contains organic and hydrated minerals preserved from as far back as 4.6 billion years ago. The samples could help to explain how Earth became covered with water. Scientists think it came on asteroids or similar planetary bodies from the outer regions of the Solar System.

Hayabusa2 has now begun its 11-year journey to its next destination: a fast-rotating asteroid known as 1998 KY26. To reach it, the spacecraft will fly by another asteroid—2001 CC21—and swing past Earth another two times.

The samples were snagged millions of miles from Earth by Japan’s Hayabusa2 mission, which studied the 3,000-foot-wide (900 meters) Ryugu up close from June 2018 to November 2019.

Hayabusa2’s predecessor was the first to haul space-rock samples home, delivering pieces of the stony asteroid Itokawa in 2010. But the original Hayabusa (Japanese for "peregrine falcon") returned less than 1 milligram of material. Hayabusa2’s bounty is expected to exceed 100 mg (0.0035 ounces), and its samples come from a very different kind of asteroid—a primitive "C-type" space rock rich in water and carbon-containing organic compounds.

"The materials that formed the Earth, its oceans and life were present in the primordial cloud from which our solar system formed. In the early solar system, these materials were in contact and able to chemically interact within the same parent objects," Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) officials wrote in an overview of Hayabusa2.

Having the samples here on Earth is key; scientists in well-equipped labs around the world can scrutinize the cosmic rock in far greater detail than Hayabusa2, or any other probe on its own in deep space, ever could. The returned material’s purity is also a major selling point. Researchers already have access to many meteorites, but these "free samples" of asteroids have been significantly altered by their trip through Earth’s atmosphere and their time on our planet’s surface.

The 1,340-lb. (690 kilograms) Hayabusa2 spacecraft launched in December 2014 and rendezvoused with the rugged Ryugu on June 27, 2018, kicking off an epic exploration campaign.

Hayabusa2 observed Ryugu in detail and also deployed multiple miniprobes onto the asteroid’s surface—several tiny, hopping rovers and a microwave-sized lander called MASCOT (Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout), which was provided by the German Aerospace Center in collaboration with the French space agency CNES.

The main Hayabusa2 spacecraft made two trips of its own to Ryugu’s surface, both times to snag samples. During the first of these operations, in February 2019, Hayabusa2 scooped up some surface material. In April of that year, the spacecraft fired a 5.5-lb. (2.5 kg) copper projectile at Ryugu, blasting a 33-foot-wide (10 m) crater into the asteroid’s surface. Then, that July, the probe swooped down and collected some of this recently excavated dirt and rock.

Hayabusa2 kept these two samples separate, so scientists will be able to compare material from two very different environments—Ryugu’s surface, which is weathered by space radiation, and the asteroid’s more protected depths.

With these samples secured, Hayabusa2 left Ryugu in November 2019 and headed home. On Nov. 26 of this year, when Hayabusa2 was about 2.2 million miles (3.6 million kilometers) from Earth, the probe fired its engines in a key trajectory-refining burn. The maneuver put Hayabusa2 on course toward a 6-mile-wide (10 km) slice of sky over Woomera—the precision equivalent of targeting a ladybug from 0.6 miles (1 km) away, JAXA officials wrote in a post-burn update.

Hayabusa2 released the 16-inch-wide (40 centimeters) return capsule on Friday night (Dec. 4), at a distance of about 137,000 miles (220,000 km) from our planet, JAXA officials said. The main spacecraft then conducted another engine burn to head away from Earth, for its work is not done: JAXA recently approved an extended mission for Hayabusa2, which will fly by the small asteroid (98943) 2001 CC21 in 2026 and rendezvous with yet another space rock, 1998 KY26, in 2031.

After securing and inspecting the craft, Hayabusa2 team members will transport it to JAXA’s Extraterrestrial Sample Curation Center in Japan. This facility, which was completed in 2008, was designed specifically to house and study cosmic material brought home by space missions.

The goals of Hayabusa2 and OSIRIS-REx are broadly similar, and the two mission teams have been working together extensively over the past few years to help achieve them. That collaboration will extend to the sharing of samples after touchdown, members of both teams have said.

JAXA is working on its own Mars sample-return project—a mission called Martian Moons Exploration (MMX), which is scheduled to launch in 2024. MMX will grab samples of Phobos, one of the Red Planet’s two small moons, and bring them to Earth for analysis.

Hayabusa 2 is an Asteroid exploration mission by the Japanese Space Exploration Agency setting out to study Asteroid 1999 JU3, dispatch a series of landers and a penetrator, and acquire sample material for return to Earth. The mission builds on the original Hayabusa mission that launched in 2003 and successfully linked up with asteroid Itokawa in 2005 and returned samples to Earth in 2010 marking the first time sample materials from an asteroid were brought back to Earth.

Hayabusa 2 is planned to complete a mission of six years – launching in December 2014 and traveling through the solar system for three and a half years, arriving at 1999 JU3 in July 2018 to spend 18 months studying the asteroid before making its return to Earth in December 2020.

Another payload of the mission is an impactor device that will be deployed towards the asteroid and uses high-explosives to generate a high-speed impact that is hoped to expose material from under the asteroid’s surface for later collection by Hayabusa 2. A deployable camera will be used to document the impact of the penetrator.

Over the next two weeks, teams were fighting to keep the mission alive since the spacecraft was loosing attitude control – its reaction wheels had already failed and the thruster leak caused the vehicle to spin – pointing its solar arrays away from the sun leading to power issues and pointing the communication antennas away from Earth. After attempts to correct the attitude by venting xenon gas through the ion thruster system, contact with the probe was lost on December 8 due to a sudden change in orientation. To stabilize, Hayabusa needed time for the conversion of precession rate to pure rotation which was expected to take several weeks.

With Hayabusa 1 still on its way through the solar system, a possible follow-on mission was proposed in 2006 to closely resemble the original mission featuring a nearly identical spacecraft with only minor changes to respond to issues seen during the Hayabusa mission. With the initial drive to fly the mission as soon as possible teams were hoping to launch in 2010 or 2011, but the budget did not permit a launch then. The additional development time allowed more changes to be made to the original spacecraft design to use more advanced and robust systems and modify the payload suite, also acquiring international support from NASA and a team of the German Aerospace Center and CNES. New systems were added including a Ka-Band antenna and impactor.

Asteroid 1999 JU3 was discovered by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) that has been heavily studied using ground and space-based telescopes. Telescopic data shows that the asteroid is about 920 meters in size and has a rotation period of 7.6 hours. Spectroscopic analysis showed that that asteroid belongs to the C-type class of primitive bodies. Data also suggests that the asteroid, at some point in its life, was in contact with water. JU3 orbits the sun in an orbit of 0.963 by 1.416 Astronomical units, inclined 5.88 degrees. This orbit, stretching from Earth’s orbit out to just outside the orbit of Mars with a small inclination makes the object suitable for a return mission.

Asteroids can be divided into different classes based on their composition with each group showing different distributions within the asteroid belt between the orbit of Mars and Jupiter, depending on their distance to the sun. While Hayabusa studied and returned sample from an S-type asteroid that are stony in composition, the follow-on mission will explore a C-type asteroid.

Other asteroid types that can be found farther from the sun are P- and D-type asteroids that are not abundantly found on Earth due to their stable orbits in the outer region of the asteroid belt or as Jovian Trojans. It is desired that a possible Hayabusa 2 follow-on mission would study one of these types of bodies to get a full picture of the composition of the different primitive bodies.

The Hayabusa 2 spacecraft is similar in architecture to the first Hayabusa spacecraft with a number of notable changes, not only to the instrument and payload suite, but also to the spacecraft platform itself. These changes include the addition of a reaction wheel to create a redundant configuration, the addition of a Ka-Band communications system and changes to the Ion Engine System using more robust technology. Components kept from the original mission allow teams to rely on flight-proven technology that has shown to perform well over the course of a mission lasting over half a decade.

The original Hayabusa spacecraft had only three reaction wheels that were also capable of controlling the orientation on all axes, but did not have any redundancy. Early in the mission, one of the wheels failed followed by another later in the flight, requiring Hayabusa to rely on its engines to maintain its attitude. The addition of a fourth wheel ensures that the system can tolerate the failure of one of the wheels without losing any attitude control capabilities.

Two redundant Inertial Reference Units are used to augment attitude determination and for use to measure body rates in order to stabilize the spacecraft rates so that the star trackers can acquire star patterns which requires the spacecraft to dampen body rates to a certain level. The accelerometers provide insight into the operation of the propulsion system, allowing the precise tracking of the achieved changes in velocity supplied by the Ion Engine System that will be in operation for several thousand hours over the course of the six year mission.

Improvements made to the propulsion system from Hayabusa 1 to 2 include a 25% increase in thrust and added mechanisms to prevent plasma ignition malfunctions in the ion source. The neutralizer, that had shown degradation after the first 10,000 hours of operation, was improved by protecting the outer walls from plasma and by strengthening the magnetic field to decrease the applied voltage needed for the emission of electrons. Hayabusa 2’s ion thrusters are planned to operate for over 18,000 hours.

Having two high gain communication systems adds redundancy and also expands the vehicle’s overall capabilities in terms of downlink volume. The X-Band system will be used for day-to-day operations, that is, telemetry downlink and command uplink to the spacecraft. The Ka-Band system is primarily used for the downlink of science data, taking advantage of its higher downlink rate of 32kbit/s. The Ka-Band system also allows for a more precise DDOR (Delta-Differential One-way Ranging) that will complement the normal line-of-sight ranging and doppler measurements for improved navigation during the mission.

To serve as a demonstrator for future deep-space optical communications, LIDAR will be used around the time of the Earth flyby one year into the mission when a laser pulse will be sent from Earth to be received by LIDAR that will immediately return a pulse to the ground station to demonstrate a basic link experiment. The ground station to be used is NICT Koganei, using a 1.2J laser operating at a pulse repetition rate of 10 Hz.

The Impact Sampling System of the Hayabusa 2 mission is almost identical to that of its predecessor – firing a projectile into the asteroid that ejects small grains of material which are caught in a sampling horn and travel up the sample collection system to be sealed in containers that will eventually be returned to Earth. The sampling system from bottom to top consists of a metal aluminum skirt, an extendable fabric horn, a conical horn funneling the sample into the spacecraft to the sample catchers and the sample container inside the Return Capsule.

The optical system of the NIRS3 instrument consists of an aperture cover, a field stopslit, two mirrors, a diffraction grating, camera lenses, a detector and two calibration targets. The Al/Ge optical components reside on a stable optical bench protected by a carbon-fiber reinforced plastic box case. Infrared light entering the spectrometer through the 70 by 70-micron slit is dispersed by a flat transmission diffraction grating combined with a cross disperser. The mirrors then direct the dispersed light to the optics that re-focus the first-order light onto the detector. The spectrometer has a field of view of 0.1 by 0.1 degrees..

The Thermal Infrared Imager of the Hayabusa 2 spacecraft will deliver valuable information on the physical properties of the asteroid’s surface by monitoring regional variations of thermal inertia, thermal emissions, and temporal variations of surface temperature.

During the mission, TIR operates for one 7.6-hour asteroid rotation per week while more operating time will be available for global mapping at high phase angles. Smaller sites such as boulders and craters are identified during the mapping of the asteroid and will be observed by TIR when favorable passes occur. The instrument is active during the descent and touchdown phase for close-up and in-situ observations.

The Return Capsule of Hayabusa 2 is similar to that flown on the first mission, capable of returning the Sample Container with three filled sample catchers to Earth, performing a re-entry at a speed of 12km/s for a parachute-assisted landing in the Woomera Test Range in Australia. The Return Capsule has a total mass of 16.5 Kilograms, measures 40 centimeters in diameter and stands 20 centimeters tall.

The Hayabusa 2 mission includes a series of landing craft that are hitching a ride to the asteroid aboard the spacecraft, namely a series of three MINERVA II rovers developed at Japanese Universities and JAXA, and the MASCOT lander, a contribution from the German Aerospace Center and the French Space Agency CNES.

MASCOT – the Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout is a small lander developed by the German Aerospace Center and the French Space Agency using knowledge gained from the development of the Philae lander of the Rosetta mission that became the first craft to make a soft landing on a comet in November 2014. Initial studies of the lander began in 2008 and its realization was decided by JAXA, DLR and CNES in 2012.

The MASCOT lander is designed to be able to hop from one location to another using a mobility system that will allow it to collect data from several locations while its battery lasts which is expected to be around 12 to 16 hours. The lander measures 0.3 by 0.3 by 0.2 meters in size with a mass of 10 Kilograms containing a number of subsystems including four instruments – a wide-angle camera, an imaging infrared spectrometer, a radiometer payload, and a magnetometer. Data from the instruments will significantly enhance the overall science return from the Hayabusa 2 mission, providing extensive in-situ data from the surface of an asteroid. The science payload has a mass of around 3 Kilograms.

Due to the lander’s limited mission timeline, thermal control can be accomplished with Multilayer Insulation and color coatings. Heaters are only used by the batteries and the spectrometer payload that have to be kept within survival temperature ranges during the cruise phase.

The lander is capable of receiving commands from Earth, relayed via the HY-2 spacecraft in case any intervention in the automated science sequence is needed due to any issues. Communications during cruise are accomplished through a Mechanical & Electrical Interface Antenna installed on the HY-2 spacecraft which eliminates the need for a hard-line data connection for cruise operations which include regular checkouts of the lander. The antennas operate at a frequency of 954 MHz using circular polarization. The link with HY-2 can be maintained up to a distance of 150 Kilometers achieving data rates of up to 16kbit/s, amounting to a total data volume of 0.7Gbit to be sent over the course of the lander’s mission.

The MASCOT lander uses two fully redundant Central Processing and Input/Output boards to ensure good control of the lander throughout its mission. The CPU boards use a LEON3FT processing unit that provides processing, reconfiguration and timing functions, data input/output and customization capabilities.

The CPU board also provides MRAM, SRAM and SDRAM. MASCOT uses a SpaceWire high-speed data bus and analog UART interfaces, all connected to the onboard computer by an FPGA-based input-output card. MASCOT’s control system includes an Autonomy Manager that is capable of autonomously controlling the entire surface mission of the lander to include as many sampling operations as possible.

An AOTF (Acousto-Optic Tunable Filter) is an electro-optical device that serves as an electronically tunable spectral bandpass filter with no moving parts. It uses a crystal in which Radio Frequency Waves are used to separate a single wavelength of light from a broadband source. The output wavelength is a function of the RF frequency that is applied to the crystal which can be varied.

Within the spectrometer, the AOTF acts as the monochromator. This design provides a number of advantages including long-term wavelength repeatability, extremely high wavelength purity, fast response to RF changes so that spectra can be recorded within seconds, high efficiency and long service life (no moving parts).

The spectral range and resolution of the instrument allows the identification of most potential constituents of the surface including silicates, oxides, salts, hydrated minerals, ices and frosts as well as organic compounds that are the focus of the entire mission to a C-type asteroid.

Images created by the cameras are thumbnail sized due to the low data speeds and MINERVA employs an onboard image processing tool that cuts any parts of a picture that do not contain a scene to minimize uplink volume. Surface temperature measurements at different locations and at different times of day are of great interest to scientists to better understand the energy balance of the asteroid and its surface material.

Hayabusa2asteroid sample-return mission operated by the Japanese state space agency JAXA. It is a successor to the Hayabusa2 was launched on 3 December 2014 and rendezvoused in space with near-Earth asteroid 162173 Ryugu on 27 June 2018.UTC.

Hayabusa2 carries multiple science payloads for remote sensing and sampling, and four small rovers to investigate the asteroid surface and analyze the environmental and geological context of the samples collected.

Initially, launch was planned for 30 November 2014,H-IIA launch vehicle.Hayabusa2 launched together with PROCYON asteroid flyby space probe. PROCYON"s mission was a failure. Hayabusa2 arrived at Ryugu on 27 June 2018,

Following the initial success of Hayabusa, JAXA began studying a potential successor mission in 2007.Hayabusa2. The cost of the project estimated in 2010 was 16.4 billion yen (US$149 million).

Hayabusa2 was launched on 3 December 2014, arrived at asteroid Ryugu on 27 June 2018, and remained stationary at a distance of about 20 km (12 mi) to study and map the asteroid. In the week of 16 July 2018, commands were sent to move to a lower hovering altitude.

The first sample collection was scheduled to start in late October 2018, but the rovers encountered a landscape with large and small boulders but no surface soil for sampling. Therefore, it was decided to postpone the sample collection plans to 2019 and further evaluate various options for the landing.Hayabusa2 released an impactor to create an artificial crater on the asteroid surface. However, Hayabusa2 initially failed on 14 May 2019 to drop special reflective markers necessary onto the surface for guiding the descent and sampling processes,JST), dropping the contents by parachute in a special container at a location in southern Australia. The samples were retrieved the same day for secure transport back to the JAXA labs in Japan.

The design of Hayabusa2 is based on the first Hayabusa spacecraft, with some improvements.solar arrays with an output of 2.6 kW at 1 AU, and 1.4 kW at 1.4 AU.lithium-ion batteries.

Hayabusa2 carried four small rovers to explore the asteroid surface MINERVA-II-2, failed before release from the orbiter. It was released on 2 October 2019 to orbit the asteroid and perform gravitational measurements before being allowed to impact the asteroid a few days later.

MASCOT was deployed 3 October 2018. It had a successful landing and performed its surface mission successfully. Two papers were published describing the results from MASCOT in the scientific journals C-type asteroids consist of more porous material than previously thought, explaining a deficit of this meteorite type. Meteorites of this type are too porous to survive the entry into the atmosphere of planet Earth. Another finding was that Ryugu consists of two different almost black types of rock with little internal cohesion, but no dust was detected.Journal of Geophysical Research and describes the magnetic properties of Ryugu, showing that Ryugu does not have a magnetic field on a boulder scale.

The first two surface samples were scheduled to start in late October 2018, but the rovers showed large and small boulders and insufficient surface area to sample, so the mission team decided to postpone sampling to 2019 and evaluate various options.

Hayabusa2"s sampling device is based on Hayabusa"s. The first surface sample retrieval was conducted on 21 February 2019, which began with the spacecraft"s descent, approaching the surface of the asteroid. When the sampler horn attached to Hayabusa2"s underside touched the surface, a 5 g (0.18 oz) tantalum projectile (bullet) was fired at 300 m/s (980 ft/s) into the surface.

The sub-surface sample collection required an impactor to create a crater in order to retrieve material under the surface, not subjected to space weathering. This required removing a large volume of surface material with a powerful impactor. For this purpose, Hayabusa2 deployed on 5 April 2019 a free-flying gun with one "bullet", called the Small Carry-on Impactor (SCI); the system contained a 2.5 kg (5.5 lb) copper projectile, shot onto the surface with an explosive propellant charge. Following SCI deployment, Hayabusa2 also left behind a deployable camera (DCAM3)

Replica of Hayabusa"s sample-return capsule (SRC) used for re-entry. Hayabusa2"s capsule is of the same size, measuring 40 cm (16 in) in diameter and using a parachute for touchdown.

At the end of the science phase in November 2019,Hayabusa2 used its ion engines for changing orbit and return to Earth.Hayabusa2 flew past Earth in late 2020, it released the capsule, on 5 December 2020 at 05:30 UTC.Woomera Test Range in Australia.×10^9 km (35.0 AU).

With the successful return and retrieval of the sample capsule on 6 December 2020 (JST), Hayabusa2 will now use its remaining 30 kg (66 lb) of xenon propellant (from the initial 66 kg (146 lb)) to extend its service life and fly out to explore new targets.2001 CC21 will be a high-speed fly-by of the L-type asteroid, a relatively uncommon type of asteroid.Hayabusa2 was not designed for this type of fly-by. The rendezvous with 1998 KY26 will be the first visit of a fast rotating micro-asteroid, with a rotation period of about 10 minutes.exoplanets.Venus flyby to set up an encounter with

The nickname of the Extended Mission is “Hayabusa2♯” (read “Hayabusa2 Sharp”). The character “♯” is a musical symbol that means “raise the note by a semitone”, and for this mission, it is also the acronym for “Small Hazardous Asteroid Reconnaissance Probe”. This name indicates that the Hayabusa2 Extended Mission is set to investigate small but potentially dangerous asteroids that may collide with the Earth in the future. The English meaning of the word “sharp” also highlights the extremely challenging nature of this mission, which is also reflected in the musical meaning of “raise the note by a semitone”, suggestive of raising of the rank of the mission.

As the character “♯” is a musical symbol, it can be difficult to enter in practice when typing. The symbol can therefore be substituted for the “#” symbol (number sign / pound / hash) that is on computer keyboards or phones. There is no problem with the notation “Hayabusa2♯” (musical symbol) or “Hayabusa2#”.

Tachibana, S.; Abe, M.; Arakawa, M.; Fujimoto, M.; Iijima, Y.; Ishiguro, M.; Kitazato, K.; Kobayashi, N.; Namiki, N.; Okada, T.; Okazaki, R.; Sawada, H.; Sugita, S.; Takano, Y.; Tanaka, S.; Watanabe, S.; Yoshikawa, M.; Kuninaka, H. (2014). "Hayabusa2: Scientific importance of samples returned from C-type near-Earth asteroid (162173) 1999 JU3". Geochemical Journal. 48 (6): 571–587. Bibcode:2014GeocJ..48..571T. doi:10.2343/geochemj.2.0350.

Yuichi Tsuda; Makoto Yoshikawa; Masanao Abe; Hiroyuki Minamino; Satoru Nakazawa (October–November 2013). "System design of the Hayabusa 2 – Asteroid sample return mission to 1999 JU3". Acta Astronautica. 91: 356–362. Bibcode:2013AcAau..91..356T. doi:10.1016/j.actaastro.2013.06.028.

Makoto Yoshikawa (6 January 2011). 小惑星探査ミッション「はやぶさ2 [Asteroid Exploration Mission "Hayabusa2"] (PDF) (in Japanese). 11th Symposium on Space Science. Retrieved 20 February 2011.

Operation Status of Ion Engines of Asteroid Explorer Hayabusa2, Nishiyama, Kazutaka; Hosoda, Satoshi; Tsukizaki, Ryudo; Kuninaka, Hitoshi; JAXA, January 2017

The Ion Engine System for Hayabusa2 Archived 6 November 2014 at the Wayback Machine, The 32nd International Electric Propulsion Conference, Wiesbaden, Germany, September 11–15, 2011

Kameda, S.; Suzuki, H.; Takamatsu, T.; Cho, Y.; Yasuda, T.; Yamada, M.; Sawada, H.; Honda, R.; Morota, T.; Honda, C.; Sato, M.; Okumura, Y.; Shibasaki, K.; Ikezawa, S.; Sugita, S. (2017). "Preflight Calibration Test Results for Optical Navigation Camera Telescope (ONC-T) Onboard the Hayabusa2 Spacecraft". Space Science Reviews. 208 (1–4): 17–31. Bibcode:2017SSRv..208...17K. doi:10.1007/s11214-015-0227-y. S2CID 255069232.

Terui, Fuyuto; Tsuda, Yuichi; Ogawa, Naoko; Mimasu, Yuya (July 2014). 小惑星探査機「はやぶさ2」の航法誘導制御における自動・自律機 [Autonomy for Guidance, Navigation and Control of Hayabusa2] (PDF). Artificial Intelligence (in Japanese). 29 (4). ISSN 2188-2266. Retrieved 9 July 2018.

Okada, Tatsuaki; Fukuhara, Tetsuya; Tanaka, Satoshi; Taguchi, Makoto; Imamura, Takeshi; Arai, Takehiko; Senshu, Hiroki; Ogawa, Yoshiko; Demura, Hirohide; Kitazato, Kohei; Nakamura, Ryosuke; Kouyama, Toru; Sekiguchi, Tomohiko; Hasegawa, Sunao; Matsunaga, Tsuneo (July 2017). "Thermal Infrared Imaging Experiments of C-Type Asteroid 162173 Ryugu on Hayabusa2". Space Science Reviews. 208 (1–4): 255–286. Bibcode:2017SSRv..208..255O. doi:

Yoshimitsu, Tetsuo; Kubota, Takashi; Tsuda, Yuichi; Yoshikawa, Makoto. "MINERVA-II1: Successful image capture, landing on Ryugu and hop!". JAXA Hayabusa2 Project. JAXA. Retrieved 24 September 2018.

Yoshimitsu, Tetsuo; Kubota, Takashi; Tomiki, Atsushi; Yoshikaw, Kent (24 October 2019). Operation results of MINERVA-II twin rovers onboard Hayabusa2 asteroid explorer (PDF). 70th International Astronautical Congress. International Astronautical Federation. Retrieved 25 January 2020.

Ho, Tra-Mi; et al. (2017). "MASCOT—The Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout Onboard the Hayabusa2 Mission". Space Science Reviews. 208 (1–4): 339–374. Bibcode:2017SSRv..208..339H. doi:10.1007/s11214-016-0251-6. S2CID 255067977.

Grott, M.; Knollenberg, J.; Borgs, B.; Hänschke, F.; Kessler, E.; Helbert, J.; Maturilli, A.; Müller, N. (1 August 2016). "The MASCOT Radiometer MARA for the Hayabusa 2 Mission". Space Science Reviews. 208 (1–4): 413–431. Bibcode:2017SSRv..208..413G. doi:10.1007/s11214-016-0272-1. S2CID 118245538.

Saiki, Takanao; Sawada, Hirotaka; Okamoto, Chisato; Yano, Hajime; Takagi, Yasuhiko; Akahoshi, Yasuhiro; Yoshikawa, Makoto (2013). "Small carry-on impactor of Hayabusa2 mission". Acta Astronautica. 84: 227–236. Bibcode:2013AcAau..84..227S. doi:10.1016/j.actaastro.2012.11.010.

Sarli, Bruno Victorino; Tsuda, Yuichi (2017). "Hayabusa2 extension plan: Asteroid selection and trajectory design". Acta Astronautica. 138: 225–232. Bibcode:2017AcAau.138..225S. doi:10.1016/j.actaastro.2017.05.016.

"はやぶさ２、再び小惑星へ 地球帰還後も任務継続―対象天体を選定へ・ＪＡＸＡ" [Hayabusa2 will explore another asteroid, continuing mission after returning target sample to Earth] (in Japanese). Jiji Press. 9 January 2020. Retrieved 9 January 2020.

Hayabusa-2 is JAXA"s (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) follow-on mission to the Hayabusa mission, the country"s first round-trip asteroid mission that sent the Hayabusa (MUSES-C) spacecraft to retrieve samples of asteroid Itokawa. The initial Hayabusa mission launched in May 2003 and reached Itokawa in 2005; it returned samples of Itokawa — the first asteroid samples ever collected in space — in June 2010. Hayabusa means "falcon" in Japanese.

The objective of the Hayabusa-2 sample return mission is to visit and explore the C-type asteroid 1999 JU3, a space body of about 920 m in length and of particular interest to researchers, because it consists of 4.5 billion-year-old material that has been altered very little. Measurements taken from Earth suggest that the asteroid’s rock may have come into contact with water. The carbonaceous or C-type asteroid is expected to contain organic and hydrated minerals, making it different from Itokawa, which was a rocky S-type (stony composition) asteroid.

Most commonly distributed around the midst of the asteroid belt are "C-type asteroids" expected to contain substantial organic or hydrated minerals. This type is expected to be the birthplace of "carbonaceous chondrite", and an important target for investigation of origin of life on earth. The Hayabusa-2 mission, following Hayabusa, is planning a sample-return from C-type asteroids.

Around the dark and cold outer edge of the belt, closer to Planet Jupiter rather than to Mars, there are many P-type or D-type asteroids, expected to be more primitive than the S- or C-type ones. Trojan groups sharing their orbits with Jupiter are repositories of D-type asteroids. Active comets abundant in volatile components, born in further space and changed its orbit relatively recently to come closer to the Sun, or "dormant comet nuclei" depleting gases or dusts and difficult to distinguish from asteroids, are also quite essential targets. Because meteorites from D-, P-type asteroids or comet nuclei have been scarcely discovered on the Earth, the surface materials and constructions of these distant bodies are entirely unknown. Materials yet to be acquired, holding the earliest information at the birth of the solar system, may be discovered. The successive mission after "Hayabusa-2" is discussed to fetch samples from such bodies.

In this respect, JAXA will conduct, not only random single missions, but programmatic and systematic mission series successively, by Hayabusa, Hayabusa-2 and post -Hayabusa-2 for sample-return from typical primitive bodies. This will allow a unified understanding of various primitive bodies, revealing of components and construction of the whole solar system, and elucidation of the mystery behind its origin and evolution. This successive sequence is directed to the more distant and more primitive bodies from the scientific view, with more sophisticated technologies.

The Hayabusa-2 mission was proposed in 2006 at first. In this first proposal, the spacecraft was almost same as that of Hayabusa, because the project team wanted to start it as soon as possible. Of course, the team realized that parts had to be modified where trouble occurred in Hayabusa, but there were no major changes. The launch windows to go for launch to asteroid 1999 JU3 were in 2010 and 2011. However, JAXA could not start Hayabusa-2 mission immediately, because no budget was available. Hence, the launch opportunity was missed. The next launch window came up in 2014. Thus, the project postponed the launch date, and continued proposing Hayabusa-2. Since the launch was delayed, the project had time to change the spacecraft a little. New instruments were added, such as a Ka-band antenna and what is called “impactor.” The project even calls Hayabusa-2 a new spacecraft.

International collaborations: The Hayabusa-2 mission involves international collaborations with Germany, the United States, and Australia. DLR (German Aerospace Center) and CNES (French Space Agency) are providing the small lander MASCOT. NASA was already a partner in the Hayabusa mission, a similar collaboration is under consideration for Hayabusa-2. The third collaboration is with Australia for capsule reentry as in the case of the Hayabusa mission.

Japan"s Hayabusa-2 spacecraft is designed to study asteroid 1999 JU3 from multiple angles, using remote-sensing instruments, a lander and a rover. It will collect surface- and possibly also subsurface materials from the asteroid and return the samples to Earth in a capsule for analysis. The mission also aims to enhance the reliability of asteroid exploration technologies.

The Hayabusa-2 mission will utilize new technology while further confirming the deep space round-trip exploration technology by inheriting and improving the already verified knowhow established by Hayabusa to construct the basis for future deep-space exploration.

The configuration of Hayabusa-2 is basically the same as that of Hayabusa, with modifications of some parts by introducing novel technologies that evolved after the Hayabusa era. For example:

• The HGA (High Gain Antenna) for Hayabusa featured a parabolic shape, while Hayabusa-2 uses two planar HGAs with a considerably lower mass but with the same performance characteristics. The reason why Hayabusa-2 has two HGAs is that spacecraft has two communication links, Ka-band as well as the X-band links. In daily operations support, the team uses the X-band for data transmission, but for the download of the asteroid observation data, the Ka-band is used to take advantage of the higher data rate of 32 kbit/s, provided by the Ka-band link. The DDOR (Delta-Differential One-way Ranging) technique is used for very accurate plane-of-sky measurements of spacecraft position which complement existing line-of-sight ranging and Doppler measurements.

- During the cruise phase, Hayabusa-2 controls its attitude with only one reaction wheel to bias the momentum around the Z-axis of the body. This is to save the operating life of reaction wheels for other axes, because the project experienced that two reaction wheels of three equipped on Hayabusa were broken after the touchdown mission.

- In this one wheel control mode, the angular momentum direction is slowly moved in the inertial space (generally called precession) due to the solar radiation torque. This attitude motion caused by the balance of the total angular momentum and solar radiation pressure is known to trace the Sun direction automatically with ellipsoidal and spiral motion around Sun direction. Based on this knowledge of the past, the attitude dynamics model for the Hayabusa-2 mission had been developed before the launch. According to the newly developed attitude dynamics model of Hayabusa-2, the precession trajectory is almost the ellipsoid around the attitude equilibrium point, and this equilibrium point is determined mainly by the phase angle around Z-axis of the body.

- Countermeasures to degradation and malfunction of three neutralizers that occurred after 10,000 to 15,000 hours of operation. To make the neutralizer’s lifespan longer, the walls of the electric discharge chamber are protected from plasma and the magnetic field has been strengthened to decrease the voltage necessary for electron emission.

• Shin"en-2, a nanosatellite technology demonstration mission (17 kg) of Kyushu Institute of Technology and Kagoshima University, Japan. The objective is to establish communication technologies with a long range as far as moon. Shin"en-2 carries into deep space an F1D digital store-and-forward transponder which offers an opportunity for earthbound radio amateurs to test the limits of their communication capabilities.

Legend to Figure 9: Hayabusa-2 is equipped with a high-specific impulse ion engine system to enable the round-trip mission. First one year after launch is an interplanetary cruise phase called EDVEGA (Electric Delta-V Earth Gravity Assist).

• March 18, 2022: Asteroids hold many clues about the formation and evolution of planets and their satellites. Understanding their history can, therefore, reveal much about our solar system. While observations made from a distance using electromagnetic waves and telescopes are useful, analyzing samples retrieved from asteroids can yield much more detail about their characteristics and how they may have formed. An endeavor in this direction was the Hayabusa mission, which, in 2010, returned to Earth after 7 years with samples from the asteroid Itokawa.

- The successor to this mission, called Hayabusa-2, was completed near the end of 2020, bringing back material from Asteroid 162173 “Ryugu,” along with a collection of images and data gathered remotely from close proximity. While the material samples are still being analyzed, the information obtained remotely has revealed three important features about Ryugu. Firstly, Ryugu is a rubble-pile asteroid composed of small pieces of rock and solid material clumped together by gravity rather than a single, monolithic boulder. Secondly, Ryugu is shaped like a spinning top, likely caused by deformation induced by quick rotation. Third, Ryugu has a remarkably high organic matter content.

- Overall, this study indicates that spinning top-shaped, rubble-pile objects with high organic content, such as Ryugu and Bennu (the target of the OSIRIS-Rex mission) are comet–asteroid transition objects (CATs). “CATs are small objects that were once active comets but have become extinct and apparently indistinguishable from asteroids,” explains Dr. Miura. “Due to their similarities with both comets and asteroids, CATs could provide new insights into our solar system.”

• January 5, 2021: Last month, Japan’s Hayabusa-2 mission brought home a cache of rocks collected from a near-Earth asteroid called Ryugu. While analysis of those returned samples is just getting underway, researchers are using data from the spacecraft’s other instruments to reveal new details about the asteroid’s past.

- The Hayabusa-2 mission represents the first time a sample from one of these intriguing asteroids has been directly collected and returned to Earth. But observations of Ryugu made by Hayabusa-2 as it flew alongside the asteroid suggest it may not to be as water-rich as scientists originally expected. There are several competing ideas for how and when Ryugu may have lost some of its water.

- Luckily, the mission isn’t limited to studying samples remotely. Since Hayabusa2 successfully returned samples to Earth in December, scientists are about to get a much closer look at Ryugu. Some of those samples may soon be coming to the NASA Reflectance Experiment Laboratory (RELAB) at Brown, which is operated by Hiroi and Milliken.

b) The sample container is sealed with an aluminum metal seal and the condition of the container is as designed, such that the inclusion of the Earth’s atmosphere was kept well below the permissible level during the mission.

- Before the Ryugu delivery, JAXA brought back tiny samples of asteroid Itokawa in 2010 as part of the first asteroid sampling mission in history. Prior to that, in 2006, NASA obtained a small sample from comet Wild-2 as part of its Stardust mission. And next, in 2023, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx will return at least a dozen ounces, or hundreds of grams, of the asteroid Bennu, which has been traveling through space and largely unaltered for billions of years.

- The capsule, recovered in the southern Australian desert, will now be in the hands of scientists performing initial analysis including checking for any gas emissions. — It will then be sent to Japan.

- But "when it comes to smaller planets or smaller asteroids, these substances were not melted, and therefore it is believed that substances from 4.6 billion years ago are still there," Hayabusa-2 mission manager Makoto Yoshikawa told reporters before the capsule arrived.

- With half of the xenon fuel for its ion engine remaining, the Hayabusa-2 spacecraft is now headed back out into deep space to embark on an extended mission, using the visit to Earth to alter its orbit.

• December 6, 2020: The team behind ESA’s Hera asteroid mission for planetary defence congratulates JAXA for returning Hayabusa-2’s capsule to Earth laden with pristine asteroid samples. They look forward to applying insights from this audacious space adventure to their own mission.

- Patrick Michel, CNRS Director of Research of France’s Côte d"Azur Observatory, serves as co-investigator and interdisciplinary scientist on the Japanese mission and as Principal Investigator on ESA’s Hera. He comments: “Hayabusa-2’s samples should give us an extraordinary opportunity to measure with high accuracy the composition and other material properties of its carbonaceous asteroid target.

- The 900-m diameter Ryugu has a spinning top shape; its density is very low and based on the results of the Small Carry-on Impactor (SCI) impact experiment performed in April 2019, its surface appears cohesionless. These findings are extremely relevant to planetary defense, which is the prime goal of the Hera mission.”

- To give an idea, Hayabusa2’s SCI 2.5-kg copper projectile shot into the surface of the 900-m diameter Ryugu asteroid at a velocity of around 2 km per second. NASA’s DART will have a mass of 550 kg, and will strike Didymoon at 6 km/s.

- Professor Masahiko Arakawa (Graduate School of Science, Kobe University, Japan) and members of the Hayabusa-2 mission discovered more than 200 boulders ranging from 30 cm to 6 m in size, which either newly appeared or moved as a result of the artificial impact crater created by Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa2’s SCI (Small Carry-on Impactor) on April 5th, 2019. Some boulders were disturbed even in areas as far as 40 m from the crater center. The researchers also discovered that the seismic shaking area, in which the surface boulders were shaken and moved an order of cm by the impact, extended about 30 m from the crater center. Hayabusa2 recovered a surface sample at the north point of the SCI crater (TD2), and the thickness of ejecta deposits at this site were estimated to be between 1.0 mm to 1.8 cm using a Digital Elevation Map (DEM). These findings on a real asteroid’s resurfacing processes can be used as a benchmark for numerical simulations of small body impacts, in addition to artificial impacts in future planetary missions su