Hayabusa 2 lands briefly on rocky asteroid, fires bullet
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It’s like landing on a pitcher’s mound in a baseball stadium from 20 kilometers above.
That is how Japanese space agency officials described the Hayabusa 2’s successful landing on an asteroid on Feb. 22, after which it fired a bullet into the surface to collect samples.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) announced that Hayabusa 2 landed at 7:29 a.m. and discharged the projectile into Ryugu’s surface before ascending.
“The hand of mankind has now reached a new small celestial object. Given the various scenarios, it landed under the best conditions,” project manager Yuichi Tsuda said about the landing.
The successful first-attempt landing is a far cry from the mission of the original Hayabusa, which ran into a number of problems before finally bringing back samples from the Itokawa asteroid in 2010 after burning up when it re-entered Earth’s atmosphere.
Hayabusa 2 began its descent toward Ryugu from an altitude of 20 km at 1:15 p.m on Feb. 21. When it reached 500 meters at 6:14 a.m on Feb. 22, the decision was made to proceed with the landing. The probe conducted the landing through autonomous control because of transmission difficulties, given that the probe is at an asteroid about 340 million km from Earth.
Scientists in the control room of JAXA’s Institute of Space and Astronautical Science in Sagamihara, Kanagawa Prefecture, stood waiting anxiously for signals from Hayabusa 2 showing that it had safely landed.
Junichiro Kawaguchi, the project manager for the original Hayabusa mission, called the Hayabusa 2 mission an attempt to make up for the many problems encountered by the first probe.
Referring to the first problem-plagued Hayabusa, Takashi Kubota, an ISAS professor, said, “A perfect task was accomplished on the first try (of Hayabusa 2). There is nothing more to say.”
Makoto Yoshikawa, the manager of the current mission, had said he wanted the latest probe to operate more according to schedule.
Smiles and applause broke out when data was received from Hayabusa 2 that showed it had landed and fired the bullet into the surface as part of efforts to collect sand and stones thrown up by the projectile’s impact.
Expressing relief over the successful touchdown, Yoshikawa said, “I want to thank Hayabusa 2 for perfectly carrying out a very complicated mission requiring a high degree of accuracy, as it operated all alone at a great distance away.”
Scientists believe the samples may help unravel the mysteries of how life began by analyzing them for traces of water or organic materials.
After its launch in December 2014, Hayabusa 2 flew around the sun and toward Ryugu, for what would be a total journey of about 3 billion km.
Initially, the probe was to attempt a landing in October 2018 after reaching the asteroid four months earlier. However, the surface of Ryugu was found to be covered with rocks as large as 60 centimeters in height, forcing JAXA scientists to reconsider their landing spot and guidance procedure.
Two additional touch-and-go landings will be attempted by July. From the second landing, metal projectiles will be shot into the asteroid to create an artificial crater to collect samples from deeper inside Ryugu.
Hayabusa 2 is scheduled to return to Earth toward the end of 2020.
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