hayabusa2 mission parts supplier

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.

On 3 December 2014, the Japanese space probe Hayabusa2 embarked on a sample return mission to the C-type asteroid (162173) Ryugu (formerly designated 1999 JU3). It is operated by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and carried the MASCOT (Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout) lander built by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in collaboration with the French Space Agency (CNES) and the Japanese space agency (JAXA). Hayabusa2 is the immediate follow-on mission of the Hayabusa mission, which saw the first probe return to Earth with samples taken from asteroid Itokawa in June 2010. At that time, the DLR Institute of Planetary Research also investigated the rare particles.

The aim of the Hayabusa2 mission is to learn more about the origin and evolution of the Solar System. Like comets, asteroids are some of the most primordial celestial bodies. Researching asteroids gives us a glimpse into our cosmic past. Near-Earth Objects (NEOs), such as Ryugu, also pose a potential threat to Earth and therefore need to be investigated to learn about and reduce their threat.

Hayabusa2 and MASCOT worked together as a team: Hayabusa2 provided the necessary data so that a suitable landing place could be found for MASCOT, whereas MASCOT carried out experiments on the asteroid"s surface and provided data on materials and the surrounding area to find a location to gather soil samples. For this, Hayabusa2 will lightly touch the asteroid"s surface in order to gather material, which it will then bring back to Earth.

The low gravitational force of the asteroid, which amounts to just one 60,000th of the gravitational force on Earth, presented a challenge for the mission. This force is insufficient to "pull" the lander out of the Hayabusa probe. As such, MASCOT was pushed out of its holder by a spring mechanism and fell to Ryugu from a height of approximately 60 metres. Had this happened too quickly, then MASCOT could have bounced off the asteroid"s surface. The lander"s "hopping" on the asteroid from site to site was programmed from start to finish so that it did not reach escape velocity. The escape velocity from Ryugu is calculated to be 38 centimetres per second. By way of comparison, the escape velocity from Earth is 11.2 kilometres per second, and that from the Moon is 2.3 kilometres per second.

The duo reached Ryugu on 27 June 2018. On 3 October 2018 at 03:58 (CEST) MASCOT separated from the Japanese Hayabusa2 spacecraft, and landed and made contact wit Ryugu approximately 20 minutes later. MASCOT was operational for over 17 hours, during which it collected data from the asteroid"s surface. Hayabusa2 will return samples to Earth in 2020.

CNES contributed the power subsystem to MASCOT, as well as a part of the telecommunications system, which included the development of antennas, and the agency will assume responsibility for the descent and landing mission analyses.

TOKYO (AP) — A small capsule containing asteroid soil samples that was dropped from 136,700 miles (220,000 kilometers) in space by Japan’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft landed as planned in the Australian Outback on Sunday. After a preliminary inspection, it will be flown to Japan for research. The extremely high precision required to carry out the mission thrilled many in Japan, who said they took pride in its success. The project’s manager, Yuichi Tsuda of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, called the capsule a “treasure box.” The AP explains the significance of the project and what comes next.

Launched on Dec. 3, 2014, the unmanned Hayabusa2 spacecraft touched down twice on the asteroid Ryugu, more than 300 million kilometers (190 million miles) away from Earth. The asteroid’s extremely rocky surface forced the mission’s team to revise landing plans, but the spacecraft successfully collected data and soil samples during the 1½ years it spent near Ryugu after arriving there in June 2018.

In its first touchdown in February 2019, the spacecraft collected surface dust samples, similar to NASA’s recent touch-and-go grab by Osiris REx on the asteroid Bennu. Hayabusa2 later blasted a crater into the asteroid’s surface and then collected underground samples from the asteroid, a first for space history. In late 2019, Hayabusa2 left Ryugu. That yearlong journey ended Sunday.

After about a year, some of the samples will be shared with NASA and other international scientists. About 40% of them will be stored for future research. JAXA mission manager Makoto Yoshikawa said just 0.1 gram of the sample can be enough to conduct the planned research, though he said more would be better.

Hayabusa2 is a successor of the original Hayabusa mission that Japan launched in 2003. After a series of technical setbacks, it sent back samples from another asteroid, Itokawa, in 2010. The spacecraft was burned up in a failed re-entry but the capsule made it to Earth.

Many Japanese were impressed by the first Hayabusa spaceship’s return, which was considered a miracle given all the troubles it encountered. JAXA’s subsequent Venus and Mars missions also were flawed. Tsuda said the Hayabusa2 team used all the hard lessons learned from the earlier missions to accomplish a 100 times better than “perfect” outcome. Some members of the public who watched the event shed tears as the capsule successfully entered the atmosphere, briefly flaring into a fireball.

About an hour after separating from the capsule at 220,000 kilometers (136,700 miles) from Earth, Hayabusa2 was sent on another mission to the smaller asteroid, 1998KY26. That is an 11-year journey one-way. The mission is to study possible ways to prevent big meteorites from colliding with Earth.

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 such as NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART). The results will be presented at the 52nd meeting of the AAS Division of Planetary Science on October 29th in the session entitled Asteroids: Bennu and Ryugu 2.

- The Hayabusa2 reentry capsule will return to Earth in South Australia on December 6, 2020 (Japan Time and Australian Time). The landing site will be the Woomera Prohibited Area. The issuance of the AROLSO gave a major step forward for the capsule recovery.

- Comment from JAXA President, Hiroshi Yamakawa: The approval to carry out the re-entry and recovery operations of the Hayabusa-2 return sample capsule is a significant milestone. We would like to express our sincere gratitude for the support of the Australian Government as well as multiple organizations in Australia for their cooperation. We will continue to prepare for the successful mission in December 2020 in close cooperation with the Australian Government.

• July 14, 2020: Dr. Hiroshi Yamakawa, President, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and Dr. Megan Clark AC, Head, the Australian Space Agency (the Agency) released a joint statement dated July 14 2020. The statement acknowledges that the capsule of ‘Hayabusa2’ containing the asteroid samples will land in South Australia on December 6, 2020.

- Joint Statement for Cooperation in the Hayabusa-2 Sample Return Mission by the Australian Space Agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, 14 July 2020

- The Australian Space Agency (the Agency) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) have been in close cooperation on JAXA’s asteroid sample-return mission, ‘Hayabusa-2’. The sample capsule is planned to land in Woomera, South Australia and the Agency and JAXA are working towards the planned safe re-entry and recovery of the capsule containing the asteroid samples.

- Successfully realizing this epoch-making sample return mission is a great partnership between Australia and Japan and will be a symbol of international cooperation and of overcoming the difficulties and crisis caused by the pandemic.

- Hayabusa-2 launched in December 2014 and reached Ryugu in June 2018. At the time of writing, Hayabusa-2 is on its way back to Earth and is scheduled to deliver a payload in December 2020. This payload consists of small samples of surface material from Ryugu collected during two touchdowns in February and July of 2019. Researchers will learn much from the direct study of this material, but even before it reaches us, Hayabusa2 helped researchers to investigate the physical and chemical makeup of Ryugu.

• March 16, 2020: The Solar System formed approximately 4.5 billion years ago. Numerous fragments that bear witness to this early era orbit the Sun as asteroids. Around three-quarters of these are carbon-rich C-type asteroids, such as 162173 Ryugu, which was the target of the Japanese Hayabusa2 mission in 2018 and 2019. The spacecraft is currently on its return flight to Earth. Numerous scientists, including planetary researchers from the German Aerospace Center (DLR), intensively studied this cosmic "rubble pile", which is almost 1 km in diameter. Infrared images acquired by Hayabusa-2 have now been published in the scientific journal Nature. They show that the asteroid consists almost entirely of highly porous material. Ryugu was formed largely from fragments of a parent body that was shattered by impacts. The high porosity and the associated low mechanical strength of the rock fragments that make up Ryugu ensure that such bodies break apart into numerous fragments upon entering Earth"s atmosphere. For this reason, carbon-rich meteorites are very rarely found on Earth and the atmosphere tends to offer greater protection against them.

- This investigation of the global properties of Ryugu confirms and complements the findings of the landing environment on Ryugu obtained by the German-French "Mobile Asteroid Surface SCOuT" (MASCOT) lander during the Hayabusa-2 mission. "Fragile, highly porous asteroids like Ryugu are probably the link in the evolution of cosmic dust into massive celestial bodies," says Matthias Grott from the DLR Institute of Planetary Research, who is one of the authors of the current Nature publication. "This closes a gap in our understanding of planetary formation, as we have hardly ever been able to detect such material in meteorites found on Earth."

- However, the processes that took place during the early history of the Solar System are not yet fully understood. Many theories are based on models and have not yet been confirmed by observations, partly because traces from these early times are rare. "Research on the subject is therefore primarily dependent on extraterrestrial matter, which reaches Earth from the depths of the Solar System in the form of meteorites," explains Helbert. It contains components from the time when the Sun and planets were formed. "In addition, we need missions such as Hayabusa2 to visit the minor bodies that formed during the early stages of the Solar System in order to confirm, supplement or – with appropriate observations – refute the models."

- Already in the summer of 2019, results from the MASCOT lander mission showed that its landing site on Ryugu was mainly populated by large, highly porous and fragile boulders. "The published results are a confirmation of the results from the studies by the DLR radiometer MARA on MASCOT," said Matthias Grott, the Principal Investigator for MARA. "It has now been shown that the rock analyzed by MARA is typical for the entire surface of the asteroid. This also confirms that fragments of the common C-type asteroids like Ryugu probably break up easily due to low internal strength when entering Earth’s atmosphere."

- Hayabusa-2 mapped the asteroid from orbit at high resolution, and later acquired samples of the primordial body from two landing sites. These are currently sealed in a transport capsule and are traveling to Earth with the spacecraft. The capsule is scheduled to land in Australia at the end of 2020. So far, the researchers assume that Ryugu"s material is chemically similar to that of chondritic meteorites, which are also found on Earth. Chondrules are small, millimeter-sized spheres of rock, which formed in the primordial solar nebula 4.5 billion years ago and are considered to be the building blocks of planetary formation. So far, however, scientists cannot rule out the possibility that they are made of carbon-rich material, such as that found on comet 67P/ Churyumov-Gerasimenko as part of ESA"s Rosetta mission with the DLR-operated Philae lander. Analyses of the samples from Ryugu, some of which will be carried out at DLR, are eagerly awaited. "It is precisely for this task – and of course for future missions such as the Japanese "Martian Moons exploration" (MMX) mission, in which extraterrestrial samples will be brought to Earth – that we at DLR"s Institute of Planetary Research in Berlin began setting up the Sample Analysis Laboratory (SAL) last year," says Helbert. The MMX mission, in which DLR is participating, will fly to the Martian moons Phobos and Deimos in 2024 and bring samples from the asteroid-sized moons to Earth in 2029. A mobile German-French rover will also be part of the MMX mission.

Some background of Hayabusa-1: This rather important result of the Hayabusa-1 mission of JAXA was inserted in the Hayabusa-2 file due to a lack of a Hayabusa-1 file on the eoPortal. The MUSES-C (Mu Space Engineering Satellite) mission; launch May 9, 2003) with the nickname ”Hayabusa”, was a deep space asteroid sample return mission of JAXA. - In Nov. 2005, the spacecraft performed five descents, among which two touch-down flights were included. Actually Hayabusa made three touch-downs and one long landing on the surface of asteroid Itokawa during those two flights.

To this end, the researchers already have specific asteroids in their sights. NASA’s OSIRIS-REx probe is currently preparing to take samples from asteroid Bennu, while JAXA’s Hayabusa2 is already on its way back to Earth. The Japanese probe visited the Ryugu asteroid last year and, as with Itokawa, it collected dust particles. The samples should land on Earth at the end of 2020 and the international team of Jena mineralogists and Toru Matsumoto are awaiting them with anticipation

- JAXA"s Hayabusa-2 has been used to carry out various missions to increase our understanding of the spinning top-shaped, Near-Earth asteroid Ryugu. Since arriving in June 2018, the unmanned spacecraft has taken samples and a great number of images of the asteroid. It is hoped that these can reveal more about Ryugu’s formation and history.

• October 2019:Hayabusa-2 arrived at the C-type asteroid Ryugu in June 2018. During one and a half year of the Ryugu-proximity operation, we succeeded in two rovers landing, one lander landing, two spacecraft touchdown/sample collection, one kinetic impact operation and two tiny reflective balls and one rover orbiting. Among the two successful touchdowns, the second one succeeded in collecting subsurface material exposed by the kinetic impact operation. This paper describes the asteroid proximity operation activity of the Hayabusa-2 mission, and gives an overview of the achievements done so far. Some important engineering and scientific activities, which have been done in synchronous operations with the spacecraft to tackle the unexpected Ryugu environment, are also described.

- Summary of Asteroid-Proximity Activity: Hayabusa2 arrived at HP (Home Position) on 27 June 2018, when the asteroid proximity phase began. The HP is defined as the position 20 km from the asteroid center toward asteroid-Earth (sub-Earth) line. The HP is always located on the day side of the asteroid, since the Sun-asteroid-Earth angle varies between 0 to 39º during the 1.5 years of the asteroid proximity phase. The Sun-asteroid distance during the asteroid proximity phase varies between 0.96-1.4AU, and the Earth-asteroid distance varies between 2.0-2.4 AU, which corresponds to the round trip light time of 33-40 minutes.

- Initial Ryugu Observation: On establishing the hovering state at HP, Hayabusa2 started initial observations of Ryugu using the remote science instruments, such as ONC-T (Optical Navigation Camera Telescopic); multi-band imager, ONC-W1 (Optical Navigation Camera-Wide), TIR (Thermal Infrared Imager), NIRS3 (Near-Infrared Spectrometer) and LIDAR (Laser Altimeter).

- Through this operation, Ryugu has been revealed to have an oblate body with an equatorial radius of 502 m and polar to equatorial axis ratio of 0.872. The asteroid spin state is upright and retrograde, having the obliquity of 171.64º with the period of 7.63262 hours. The spectral data obtained by ONC-T and NIRS3 indicate Ryugu is a Cb-type (carbon rich) with a very low geometric albedo of 4.5%, and is later proved to contain hydroxyl(OH)-bearing minerals all over the globe. One of the extraordinary features of Ryugu is that the number density of boulders is uniformly high across the surface, twice as high as that of Itokawa for boulders having diameter larger than 20 m, which led to the primary difficulty that the Hayabusa2 mission faced for deriving feasible landing sites. The gravity of Ryugu was measured to be GM=30.0 m3/s2 by a free-fall operation conducted on August 5-7, 2018. This GM corresponds to the bulk density of 1.19 g/cm3, showing that Ryugu is a rubble-pile.

- At the time MSC operation completed, the project decided a new strategy toward realizing the spacecraft touchdown. Based on three descent operations done in September-October, 2018, our terrain relative guidance accuracy performance was evaluated to be around 15 m, which was far better than the original specification of 50 m. On the other hand. due to the aborted TD1-R1 operation, the LRF performance had not been obtained. Thus the project decided to do additional two touchdown rehearsals (TD1-R1A and TD1-R3) before the actual touchdown operation. TD1-R1A is basically a retrial of TD1-R1 to acquire the LRF performance. TD1-R3 is to deploy the target marker (TM) on ground to precisely evaluate the our terrain relative guidance capability and the autonomous TM-tracking control performance of Hayabusa2. The TM is a 10 cm diameter ball covered with retro-reflective sheet. Hayabuas-2 is equipped with a flash lamp (FLA). The combination of TM and FLA enables an autonomous terrain relative control by a bright-spot tracking which is tolerant against highly uncertain surface condition. The target site of these two operations was set at L08-B1 whose diameter is 20 m and was selected because it is the flattest region in the L08 area.

- The last semi-critical operation was the MINERVA-II-2 orbiting operation (MNRV-ORB), in which the MINERVA-II-2 rover, developed by Tohoku University and the Japanese University Consortium, was released from the spacecraft at the terrain altitude of 1 km onto an equatorial orbit. The main computer of the MINERVA-II-2 rover had been found to be nonfunctional, and therefore the objective of the mission was changed to more focus on the behavior of the rover from separation until landing rather than post-landing activity. The separation occurred at 15:57:20 UT on 2 October 2019 and the orbiting MINERVA-II-2 rover was observed from the spacecraft’s ONC-T/ONC-W1 camera at the altitude of 8-10 km from the separation until 8 October. The radio link between Hayabusa-2 and MINERVA-II-2 was also confirmed. These measurements are to be also used for the gravity science.

- In summary, Hayabusa-2 arrived at an unexplored C-type asteroid Ryugu, and conducted all the planned missions successfully. Fundamental scientific questions about Ryugu have been answered through successful scientific activities, and more fundamental questions have been raised. From the engineering point of view, during one and a half year of the Ryugu-proximity phase, Hayabusa-2 has achieved seven “world’s firsts”, that are (1) mobile activity of rovers on small body, (2) multiple rover deployment on a small body, (3) 60 cm-accuracy landing and sampling, (4) artificial crater forming and observation of impact process, (5) multiple landing on extra-terrestrial planet, (6) subsurface material sampling, (7) Smallest-object constellation around extra-terrestrial planet. Hayabusa-2 will leave Ryugu in the middle of November 2019 and is scheduled to return to Earth in November-December, 2020.

• July 15, 2019: Ryugu and other asteroids of the common ‘C-class’ consist of more porous material than was previously thought. Small fragments of their material are therefore too fragile to survive entry into the atmosphere in the event of a collision with Earth. This has revealed the long-suspected cause of the deficit of this meteorite type in finds on Earth. Researchers at the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) have come to this conclusion in a scientific paper published in the journal Nature Astronomy. The results are based on high-resolution measurements of the surface temperature with the DLR radiometer MARA on board the German-French Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout (MASCOT) lander. On 3 October 2018, as part of the Japanese Hayabusa-2 mission, MASCOT descended onto the almost 1 km diameter asteroid Ryugu and sent spectacular images and physical measurements from the surface back to Earth.

- The gravitational attraction of Ryugu is 66,500 times weaker than that of Earth, so the small amount of momentum produced by the arm was sufficient. This technical innovation for an unconventional form of mobility on an asteroid surface was used for the first time in the history of space exploration as part of the Hayabusa-2 mission. The Hayabusa-2 mission on Ryugu will continue until the end of 2019, with the goal of returning samples of the asteroid material to Earth by 2020. On 11 July, Hayabusa-2 successfully completed the second touchdown operation on the asteroid.

- Hayabusa-2 is a Japanese space agency (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency; JAXA) mission to the near-Earth asteroid Ryugu. The German-French lander MASCOT carried on board Hayabusa-2 was developed by the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) and built in close cooperation with the French space agency CNES (Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales). The scientific experiments on board MASCOT were devised by DLR, the Institut d’Astrophysique Spatiale and the Technical University of Braunschweig. The MASCOT lander and its experiments are operated and controlled by DLR with support from CNES and in constant interaction with the Hayabusa-2 team.

• July 11, 2019: Japan"s Hayabusa-2 probe made a "perfect" touchdown Thursday on a distant asteroid, collecting samples from beneath the surface in an unprecedented mission that could shed light on the origins of the solar system. "We"ve collected a part of the solar system"s history," project manager Yuichi Tsuda said at a jubilant press conference hours after the successful landing was confirmed. "We have never gathered sub-surface material from a celestial body further away than the Moon," he added. "We did it and we succeeded in a world first."

- On Wednesday, 3rd December 2014, an orange and white rocket over 50m tall weighing almost 300 tons launched from Tanegashima Space Center in South West Japan and successfully sent the Hayabusa2 spacecraft hurtling into space. Its carefully calculated trajectory swung Hayabusa2 round the Earth to pick up speed so it could reach its destination in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The target was the asteroid Ryugu and Hayabusa2 arrived on schedule on Wednesday 27 June 2018.

- According to colleagues of Sugita writing in a companion paper, various instruments on Hayabusa2 including a visible-light camera and a near-infrared spectrometer confirm the lack of water. This fact is important as it"s thought all of Earth"s water, including that comprising 70% of you, came from local asteroids, distant comets and the nebula or dust cloud that became our sun. The presence of dry asteroids in the asteroid belt would change models used to describe the chemical composition of the early solar system. But why does this matter?

- "Thanks to the parallel missions of Hayabusa-2 and OSIRIS-REx, we can finally address the question of how these two asteroids came to be," concludes Sugita. "That Bennu and Ryugu may be siblings yet exhibit some strikingly different traits implies there must be many exciting and mysterious astronomical processes we have yet to explore."

Figure 61: Hayabusa2 touchdown on Asteroid Ryugu. JAXA’s Asteroid Explorer “Hayabusa2” collected a sample from asteroid Ryugu on 22 February 2019. The touchdown was captured using the onboard small monitor camera (CAM-H). The image of the site immediately after touchdown was taken with the Optical Navigation Camera – Wide angle (ONC-W1) on 22 February 2019 (video credit: JAXA, University of Tokyo, Kochi University, Rikkyo University, Nagoya University, Chiba Institute of Technology, Meiji University, Aizu University, AIST, Published on 5 March 2019)

- The descent to Ryugu began on 21 February at 4:45 UTC, a delay of about 5 hours later than initially planned. The reason for the delay wasn"t clear, but mission controllers made up for lost time by sending Hayabusa-2 towards Ryugu at a speed of 90 cm/s instead of 40 cm/s. Around the same time, images from the spacecraft"s optical navigation cameras started coming in, and continued to do so until the spacecraft crossed beneath 200 meters shortly after 22:02 UTC.

- At the 45-meter hold point, Hayabusa-2 oriented itself for landing and turned its high-gain antenna away from Earth, shutting off the flow of telemetry in the process. From there, mission controllers could only watch for Doppler shifts in the signal from Hayabusa-2"s low-gain antenna, indicating the spacecraft had pushed its sample horn into Ryugu and was starting to ascend.

- Hayabusa-2 began to ascend, and just minutes later was able to swing its high-gain antenna back toward Earth. Mission controllers confirmed that the spacecraft was healthy and the command to fire the tantalum bullet executed as expected.

• February 22, 2019: Up until now, the Hayabusa-2 mission has progressed smoothly. One particular success was the landing of the small rovers on the surface of Ryugu, which could not be achieved during the first Hayabusa mission. Now on February 22, 2019, we plan to touchdown on the asteroid surface; another challenge that did not go as expected for Hayabusa.

- Numerous boulders are distributed on the surface of Ryugu. Regardless of where you look, there are rocks, rocks and more rocks. This is a major characteristic of Ryugu and continues to make plans for the touchdown operation of the spacecraft difficult. Additionally, spectroscopic observations revealed that the giant boulder (Otohime saxum) at the south pole has not only a substantial size, but also a distinct visible light spectrum that reveals materials and surface conditions that are different from the surrounding areas. Since this boulder is the most important topographical feature for understanding the formation history of Ryugu, the Project strongly hoped to name it. However, there was no precedent for boulder nomenclature and even the name type did not exist (during the exploration of the first Hayabusa mission, naming the huge boulder protruding from asteroid Itokawa was not allowed). We therefore proposed the type name for boulders at the same time as applying for the place names. Since terrain type names are usually Latin, we proposed “saxum” (meaning rocks and stones in Latin) as the type name for boulders. The IAU accepted this nomenclature for boulders with a few conditions (such as the boulder must be 1% or more of the diameter of the celestial body) and the type name that we suggested was adopted (!). This is how the new terrain type “saxum” was born.

• December 21, 2018: Until now, “astrodynamics” has been one of the less frequently reported operations for Hayabusa2. In space engineering, the movement, attitude, trajectory and overall handling of the flight mechanics of the spacecraft is referred to as “astrodynamics”. For example, astrodynamics played an active role in the gravity measurement descent operation in August 2018. While this was a short time ago, let’s look at a few of the details.

- The image resolution is about 4.6 mm/pixel. This is the highest resolution image that Hayabusa-2 has taken so far and even small rocks with a diameter of 2 – 3 cm are clearly visible. The maximum resolution of AMICA –the camera at the time of the first Hayabusa mission— was 6 mm/pixel, so even its resolution has now been exceeded. As the image captured of the asteroid surface from the spacecraft, it will be one of the highest resolution to be taken of Ryugu (MINERVA-II1 and MASCOT which landed on the surface, have captured even higher resolution images).

• October 25, 2018: DPS is the Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society and is one of the largest academic societies for the planetary field in the world. This year will be the 50th meeting for the DPS ( https://aas.org/meetings/dps50 ), held in Knoxville, Tennessee in the USA from October 21 to 26. A special session dedicated to Hayabusa-2 will be held during this meeting, where one session in the conference will be devoted to announcements only from this mission. This is a first for Hayabusa2. Hayabusa2 will also be the subject of a press briefing held during the conference.

- The Hayabusa-2 special session involves thirteen studies presented in the poster session on October 25 and nine oral presentations held on October 26. The titles and abstracts of these research presentations are listed as sessions 411 (poster presentation) and 501 (oral presentation) in the table of contents of the conference abstract book available on the DPS website (https://aas.org/files/final_abstract_program.pdf ). In addition to these special sessions, there is one additional presentation related to Hayabusa2 in session 309 (309.03 in the abstract book). This brings the total number of Hayabusa2 presentations up to 23.

- MASCOT had no propulsion system and landed in free fall. Six minutes after separating from Hayabusa-2, and following the end of a ballistic trajectory, the landing module made its first contact with asteroid Ryugu. On the surface, MASCOT moved through the activation of a tungsten swing arm accelerated and decelerated by a motor. This made it possible for MASCOT to be repositioned to the "correct" side or even perform hops across the asteroid"s surface. The gravitational attraction on Ryugu is just one 66,500th of the Earth"s, so the little momentum provided was enough: a technological innovation for an unusual form of mobility on an asteroid surface used for the first time in the history of space travel as part of the Hayabusa-2 mission.

- Having reconstructed the events that took place on asteroid Ryugu, the scientists are now busy analyzing the first results from the acquired data and images. "What we saw from a distance already gave us an idea of what it might look like on the surface," reports Ralf Jaumann from the DLR Institute of Planetary Research and scientific director of the MASCOT mission. "In fact, it is even crazier on the surface than expected. Everything is covered in rough blocks and strewn with boulders. How compact these blocks are and what they are composed of, we still do not know. But what was most surprising was that large accumulations of fine material are nowhere to be found – and we did not expect that. We have to investigate this in the next few weeks, because the cosmic weathering would actually have had to produce fine material," continues Jaumann.

- "MASCOT has delivered exactly what we expected: an "extension" of the space probe on the surface of Ryugu and direct measurements on site," says Tra-Mi Ho. Now there are measurements across the entire spectrum, from telescope light curves from Earth to remote sensing with Hayabusa2 through to the microscopic findings of MASCOT. "This will be of enormous importance for the characterization of this class of asteroids," emphasizes Jaumann.

- "The mission... is to land without hitting rocks," Tsuda said, adding this was a "most difficult" operation. "We had expected the surface would be smooth... but it seems there"s no flat area."

- "With MASCOT, it has been possible to, for the first time, explore the surface of an asteroid directly on site so extensively," says Hansjörg Dittus, DLR Executive Board Member for Space Research and Technology. "A mission like this can only be done working in close cooperation with international partners – bringing together all their expertise and commitment." With MASCOT, DLR has been working closely with the Japanese space agency JAXA and the French space agency CNES.

Figure 82: Hayabusa2 acquires images of MASCOT on its approach to Ryugu. Three consecutive images acquired on 3 October 2018 between 03:57:54 and 03:58:14 CEST with the wide-angle optical navigation camera (ONC-W2). MASCOT can be seen at the top (image credit: JAXA, Tokyo University, Kochi Univ., Rikkyo Univ., Nagoya Univ., Chiba Institute of Technology, Meiji Univ., Aizu Univ., AIST)

- Waiting for the scientific data: MASCOT is now a silent inhabitant of Ryugu. "The evaluation of the valuable data has just begun," says MASCOT project manager Tra-Mi Ho from the DLR Institute of Space Systems. "We will learn a lot about the past of the Solar System and the importance of near-Earth asteroids like Ryugu. Today, I look forward to the scientific publications that will result from MASCOT and the remarkable Hayabusa-2 mission of our Japanese partners. "Hayabusa-2 played a crucial role in the success of MASCOT. The Japanese probe brought the lander to the asteroid. Thanks to precise planning and control, the communication links to the lander could be optimally used for data transmission, so that the first pictures were received on the very day of landing. The remaining scientific data, which was transmitted to Hayabusa-2, will be sent to Earth in the coming days.

- The moment of separation was one of the risks of the mission: If MASCOT had not successfully separated from Hayabusa-2 as planned and often tested, the lander’s team would hardly have had the opportunity to solve this problem. But everything went smoothly: Already during the descent on the asteroid, MasCam (MASCOT Camera) took 20 pictures, which are now stored on board the Japanese space probe. "The camera worked perfectly," says Ralf Jaumann, DLR planetary scientist and scientific director of the camera instrument. "The team"s first images of the camera are therefore safe." The magnetometer team was also able to recognize in the data sent by MASCOT that the MASMAG instrument had switched on and performed measurements prior to the separation. "The measurements show the relatively weak field of the solar wind and the very strong magnetic disturbances caused by the spacecraft," explains Karl-Heinz Glaßmeier from the Technical University of Braunschweig. "At the moment of the separation, we expected a clear decrease of the interference field – and we were able to recognize this clearly."

- The next stage will see the Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout (MASCOT) lander released onto the asteroid’s surface. Developed by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in cooperation with the French Space Agency (CNES) MASCOT has enough power for a 12-hour mission, in which it will analyze the asteroid’s surface at two different sites.

• June 28, 2018: After a 42-month journey, Japan"s Hayabusa-2 spacecraft arrived at asteroid 162173 Ryugu, 300 million km from Earth, on 27 June at 00:35 GMT. This remarkable achievement was confirmed when the spacecraft closed to just 20 km from the 1 km-diameter asteroid"s surface, having entered a critical phase of this ambitious mission.

- "Together with all of you, we have become the first eyewitnesses to see asteroid Ryugu. I feel this amazing honor as we proceed with the mission operations," said Yuichi Tsuda, project manager of JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency).

- In 2014-17, during Hayabusa-2"s cruise phase from Earth to the asteroid, ESA"s deep-space ground station at Malargüe, Argentina - part of the Agency"s worldwide Estrack network - provided crucial communication support to the mission.

- In July this year, Malargüe will resume support, providing one communication contact session per week together with ESA"s Cebreros station in Spain. The Malargüe station will also support the ESA-JAXA BepiColombo mission, due for launch in the autumn (Ref. 80).

- Hayabusa-2 will arrive at the asteroid vicinity in the summer of 2018. Hayabusa-2 will explore Ryugu for 1.5 years and return to the Earth in the winter of 2020. The 1.5 year allocation for proximity phase operations is much larger than the 3 months of Hayabusa"s proximity operation, however the schedule is marginal. Three touchdown operations need to be planned within the limited amount of time to satisfy the mission success criteria.

- Forward Cruise Operation: Hayabusa-2 started the forward cruise phase (cruise from Earth to Ryugu) on March 3, 2015, following the completion of the commissioning phase. Total of approximately 7000 hours IES operation is planned to reach Ryugu. Table 7 shows the history of the IES operation from launch until present. Figure 111 shows the trajectory from EGA to Ryugu arrival with the IES thrust vector history.

- The Earth closest approach occurred at 10:08:07 UT, December 3, 2015 over the Pacific Ocean (Figure 112). The closest distance was 3090 km (from the Earth surface) and the flyby deflection angle (angle between incoming and outgoing velocity vector in ECI frame) is 83º. The interplanetary velocity increment by this EGA is 1.6 km/s. The spacecraft experienced an eclipse for 20 minutes, which is the longest battery-powered operation for Hayabusa-2 throughout its mission.

- The Hayabusa-2 spacecraft by JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) set off on its mission on 3 December 2014, carrying the French-German MASCOT lander. One year later, the duo zipped round the Earth to gain momentum and sent back photos from our planet before continuing on toward the asteroid Ryugu. The spacecraft will venture deeper into space until the summer of 2018, when it will enter orbit around the celestial body that DLR planetary researcher Ralf Jaumann refers to as a "beautifully primitive object". "During this mission, we will be investigating primordial material from the solar nebula; it has remained practically unchanged in its 4.5 billion years of existence." Then, while the Hayabusa-2 spacecraft measures and analyses the asteroid from its position in orbit, MASCOT will descend to its surface to conduct scientific measurements. The Japanese spacecraft will also take on soil samples that it will bring back to Earth in 2020. "This is a complete package. There has never been anything like this before: we will be observing and mapping remotely, measu