hayabusa2 mission parts price

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 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.

Hayabusa2 automatically fired its thrusters this morning (June 27) at 9:35 a.m. local Japanese time (8:45 p.m. on June 26 EDT, or 1245 GMT), bringing the probe within a constant 12 miles (20 kilometers) of the asteroid, according to a statement from JAXA. [Funny (and Scary) Ryugu Predictions by Japan"s Hayabusa2 Team]

The Hayabusa2 team will have to select the best place for the probe"s lander and rovers based on the space rock"s spinning-top-like shape and its rotation; the 3,000-foot-wide (900 meters) asteroid rotates perpendicular to its orbit, completing a full rotation every 7.5 hours.

"Now, craters are visible, rocks are visible and the geographical features are seen to vary from place to place. This form of Ryugu is scientifically surprising and also poses a few engineering challenges," Hayabusa2 Project Manager Yuichi Tsuda said in a statement before the asteroid"s arrival.

The lander on Hayabusa2, called MASCOT(short for Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout), was built by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) as part of a joint German-French contribution to the mission. The lander is scheduled to be released by Hayabusa2 in October. After landing, MASCOT will hop around the asteroid, covering distances of up to 229 feet (70 meters), to study different parts of the asteroid. It is expected to last at least 16 hours, DLR officials have said.

The asteroid"s shape and rotation "means we expect the direction of the gravitational force on the wide areas of the asteroid surface to not point directly down," Tsuda added. "We therefore need a detailed investigation of these properties to formulate our future operation plans." [Photos: Japan"s Hayabusa2 Asteroid Mission in Pictures]

JAXA"s first Hayabusa mission brought back dust from the surface of the asteroid Itokawa in 2010; Hayabusa2 will go deeper on Ryugu than the first mission did on Itokawa, blasting the diamond-shaped asteroid with a cannon and spiraling down to collect samples. The estimated cost of the Hayabusa2 mission is 16.4 billion yen ($150 million), according to JAXA.

Scientists at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (Jaxa) observing the landing from a control room on the southern island of Tanegashima applauded and made “V” for victory signs after the Hayabusa2 probe landed on the asteroid on Thursday morning local time.

Its landing is the second time the probe has touched down on the desolate asteroid as part of a complex mission that has also involved sending rovers and robots.[PPTD] July 11 at 10:51 JST: Gate 5 check. The state of the spacecraft is normal and the touchdown sequence was performed as scheduled. Project Manager Tsuda has declared that the 2nd touchdown was a success!— HAYABUSA2@JAXA (@haya2e_jaxa) July 11, 2019

The mission hopes to collect pristine materials from beneath the surface of the asteroid that could provide insights into what the solar system was like at its birth 4.6bn years ago. The agency said it would be the first time a probe has taken particles from below the surface of an asteroid.

To get at those crucial materials, in April an “impactor” was fired from Hayabusa2 towards Ryugu in a risky process that created a crater on the asteroid’s surface and stirred up material that had not previously been exposed to the atmosphere.

“This is the second touchdown, but doing a touchdown is a challenge whether it’s the first or the second,” Yuichi Tsuda, Hayabusa2 project manager, told reporters ahead of the mission.

Hayabusa2’s first touchdown was in February, when it landed briefly on Ryugu and fired 5g pellet at more than 1,050km per hour (650mph) into the asteroid’s surface to puff up dust for collection, before blasting back to its holding position.

During its brief time on the asteroid, Hayabusa2 collected samples from the crater formed in February via a tube that retrieved the unidentified “ejecta” as it floated up.

A photo of the crater taken by Hayabusa2’s camera showed that parts of the asteroid’s surface are covered with materials that are “obviously different” from the rest of the surface, mission manager Makoto Yoshikawa told reporters. “I’m really looking forward to analysing these materials.”

At about the size of a large refrigerator and powered by solar panels, Hayabusa2 is the successor to Jaxa’s first asteroid explorer, Hayabusa – Japanese for falcon.

Hayabusa2’s photos of Ryugu, which means “Dragon Palace” in Japanese and refers to a castle at the bottom of the ocean in an ancient Japanese tale, show the asteroid has a rough surface full of boulders.

The Hayabusa2 mission was launched in December 2014 at a cost of around 30bn yen ($270m). It reached its stationary position above Ryugu in June last year after travelling 3.2bn km on an elliptical orbit around the sun for more than three years, according to Kyodo news agency.

Hayabusa2 is JAXA"s asteroid-chasing spacecraft, which spent 16 months around Ryugu between 2018 and 2019. In that time, the spacecraft made two touchdowns on the asteroid"s surface, collecting rocks and debris from its face and storing them in a sample capsule, informally known as the tamatebako, or "treasure box."

On Monday, JAXA revealed that the gas detected by Hayabusa2 was indeed from Ryugu. A secondary analysis provided the same readout as seen at the QLF, confirming it is of extraterrestrial origin. This is the first time a gas sample has been collected from deep space.

JAXA was confident that sampling had occurred during a fine, black grain on the outside of the main chambers. A good start.The sample container inside the re-entry capsule was opened on December 14, and we confirmed black grains thought to be from Ryugu were inside. This is outside the main chambers, and likely particles attached to the sample catcher entrance. (English release available tomorrow) https://t.co/NAw1R1cjvy pic.twitter.com/5BfXxfH29h— HAYABUSA2@JAXA (@haya2e_jaxa) December 14, 2020

Hayabusa2 isn"t the only asteroid sample return mission underway. NASA"s Osiris-rex spacecraft aims to replicate the successes of JAXA in the coming years. Earlier this year, it was able to

After a four-year journey, Hayabusa2 rendezvoused with the space rock and then, in 2019, the spacecraft made two brief touchdowns on the asteroid, hoovering up samples and storing them in a specialized sample capsule. That sample capsule landed in the Australian outback in 2020 and its precious cargo has been carefully managed since.

But it"s not just JAXA that"s interested in Ryugu. NASA acquired 10% of the returned samples in December 2021 and will perform its own analysis of the samples, looking to compare the find with their own asteroid sample-return mission, Osiris-Rex, which visited the asteroid Bennu in 2020. That mission is

Bits of an asteroid landed in a barren region near Woomera, South Australia. These were being ferried to Earth by Hayabusa2, a robotic space probe launched by JAXA, Japan’s space agency, in 2014 to explore an asteroid named Ryugu, a dark, carbon-rich rock a bit more than half a mile wide.

“I’m home,” Yuichi Tsuda, the mission’s project manager said in translated comments during a news conference after a capsule containing the asteroid sample was recovered. “Hayabusa2 is home.”

The success of the mission and the science it produces will raise Japan’s status as a central player in deep space exploration, together with NASA, the European Space Agency and Russia. JAXA currently has a spacecraft in orbit around Venus studying that planet’s hellish climate and is collaborating with the Europeans on a mission that is on its way to Mercury.

“It’s really in the middle of nowhere,” Shogo Tachibana, the principal investigator in charge of the analysis of the Hayabusa2 samples, said in an interview. He is part of a team of more than 70 people from Japan who traveled to Woomera for recovery of the capsule. The area, used by the Australian military for testing, provides a wide open space that was ideal for the return of an interplanetary probe.

The return capsule separated from the main spacecraft on Saturday about 12 hours before the landing, when it was about 125,000 miles from Earth. The mission’s managers confirmed the capsule’s ejection using data beamed back from the spacecraft, as well as with visual assistance from telescopes, like one at Kyoto University in Japan.

Soichi Noguchi, a Japanese astronaut who joined the International Space Station crew in November after a trip in a SpaceX capsule, said he spotted Hayabusa2 from orbit:

Makoto Yoshikawa, the mission manager, said in an interview the scientists would also like to see if they can detect any solar wind particles of helium that slammed into the asteroid and became embedded in the rocks.

The gases would also reassure the scientists that Hayabusa2 did indeed successfully collect samples from Ryugu. A minimum of 0.1 grams, or less than 1/280th of an ounce, is needed to declare success. The hope is the spacecraft brought back several grams.

On Monday night, an airplane left Australia to carry the sample back to Japan. There, the Hayabusa2 team will examine the Ryugu samples in earnest. In about a year, some of the samples will be shared with other scientists for additional study.

ImageThe asteroid Ryugu, viewed by Hayabusa2 after leaving its orbit in November 2019.Credit...JAXA/JiJi Press, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

To gather these samples, Hayabusa2 arrived at the asteroid in June 2018. It executed a series of investigations, each of escalating technical complexity. It dropped probes to the surface of Ryugu, blasted a hole in the asteroid to peer at what lies beneath and twice descended to the surface to grab small pieces of the asteroid, an operation that proved much more challenging than expected because of the many boulders on the surface.

ImageDisplays in the Royal Australian Air Force’s Woomera range complex, where Hayabusa2’s landing will be monitored.Credit...Morgan Sette/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Part of the Ryugu samples will go to NASA, which is bringing back some rocks and soil from another asteroid with its OSIRIS-REX mission. The OSIRIS-REX space probe has been studying a smaller carbon-rich asteroid named Bennu and it will start back to Earth next spring, dropping off its rock samples in September 2023.

“When the OSIRIS-REX sample comes back, we will have lessons learned from the Hayabusa2 mission,” said Harold C. Connolly Jr., a geology professor at Rowan University in New Jersey and the mission sample scientist for OSIRIS-REX. “The similarities and differences are absolutely fascinating.”

Hayabusa2 is not Japan’s first planetary mission. Indeed, its name points to the existence of Hayabusa, an earlier mission that brought back samples from another asteroid, Itokawa. But that mission, which launched in 2003 and returned in 2010, faced major technical problems. So did JAXA’s Akatsuki spacecraft, currently in orbit around Venus, which the Japanese agency managed to restore to a scientific mission after years of difficulty. A Japanese mission to Mars also failed in 2003.

By contrast, operations of Hayabusa2 have gone almost flawlessly, even though it retains the same general design as its predecessor. “Actually, there are no big issues,” Dr. Yoshikawa, the mission manager, said. “Of course, small ones.”

The Japanese missions generally operate on smaller budgets than NASA’s and thus often carry fewer instruments. Hayabusa2’s cost is less than $300 million while OSIRIS-REX’s price will run about $1 billion.

Dropping off the Ryugu samples is not the end of the Hayabusa2 mission. After releasing the return capsule, the main spacecraft shifted course to avoid a collision with Earth, missing by 125 miles. It will now travel to another asteroid, a tiny one designated 1998 KY26 that is only 100 feet in diameter but spinning rapidly, completing one rotation in less than 11 minutes.

Hayabusa2 will use two flybys of Earth to fling itself toward KY26, finally arriving in 2031. It will conduct some astronomical experiments during its extended deep space journey, and the spacecraft still carries one last projectile that it may use to test that space rock’s surface.

ImageHayabusa2, viewed from Ryugu’s surface after separation from the two rovers it brought from Earth in 2018.Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

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 guidanc