{"id":13644,"date":"2018-08-15T23:25:58","date_gmt":"2018-08-15T15:25:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/hayabusa-2-probe-gets-a-closer-look-at-asteroid-amid-landing-preps\/"},"modified":"2018-08-15T23:25:58","modified_gmt":"2018-08-15T15:25:58","slug":"hayabusa-2-probe-gets-a-closer-look-at-asteroid-amid-landing-preps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/hayabusa-2-probe-gets-a-closer-look-at-asteroid-amid-landing-preps\/","title":{"rendered":"Hayabusa 2 probe gets a closer look at asteroid amid landing preps"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
A wide-angle optical navigation camera on the Hayabusa 2 spacecraft captured this view of asteroid Ryugu on Aug. 6 as the spacecraft approached to a distance of less than 2,800 feet (851 meters) from the object. Credit: JAXA, University Tokyo, Koichi University, Rikkyo University, Nagoya University, Chiba Institute of Technology, Meiji University, University of Aizu, AIST<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Japanese Hayabusa 2 spacecraft dropped within a half-mile of asteroid Ryugu last week, probing its gravity field ahead of key decisions in the coming days to settle on a target site for the robotic mission\u2019s first sample collection attempt, and the best touchdown location for a European lander stowed on the mothership.<\/p>\n

The descent to a distance of 2,792 feet (851 meters) from Ryugu was the closest Hayabusa 2 has come to the asteroid since arriving at a stationkeeping position roughly 12 miles (20 kilometers) from the object June 27.<\/p>\n

During the descent last week, ground controllers commanded Hayabusa 2 to disable its rocket control thrusters, allowing sensors on the spacecraft to measure the probe\u2019s attraction to Ryugu by the asteroid\u2019s gravitational field. Once it reached the point of closest approach Aug. 6, Hayabusa 2 fired jets to climb away from Ryugu, and the spacecraft again collected data on the asteroid\u2019s gravity.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the gravity measurement operation, we allow the spacecraft\u2019s motion to be determined by the attraction of Ryugu\u2019s gravity without controlling the trajectory and attitude of the spacecraft (\u201cfree-fall\u201d and \u201cfree-rise\u201d),\u201d officials wrote in an update on Hayabusa 2\u2019s official website. \u201cBy monitoring the exact movement of the Hayabusa 2, we can see how strong the gravitational attraction is from Ryugu.\u201d<\/p>\n

The data will help navigators at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency\u2019s control center in Sagamihara, on the outskirts of Tokyo, plot future movements of Hayabusa 2 around the asteroid. Improved gravity measurements should also help engineers develop more accurate trajectories when the mission descends to Ryugu\u2019s surface later this year for the first of three touch-and-go landings to snag rock specimens for return to Earth.<\/p>\n

Close-up imagery recorded by Hayabusa 2\u2019s telescopic optical camera revealed new details about Ryugu\u2019s surface last week, showing textures, rugged ridges and large boulders strewn across a dark gray landscape.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Hayabusa 2\u2019s telescopic optical camera captured this view of Ryugu\u2019s surface from a distance of roughly 3,300 feet (1 kilometer) on Aug. 6. Credit: JAXA, University Tokyo, Koichi University, Rikkyo University, Nagoya University, Chiba Institute of Technology, Meiji University, University of Aizu, AIST<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Scientists are expected to soon decide where to send Hayabusa 2 this fall to gather its first sample. Researchers are meeting this week in Sagamihara to assess the mission\u2019s early data returns.<\/p>\n

Hayabusa 2 is a follow-up to Japan\u2019s Hayabusa mission, which explored asteroid Itokawa in 2005 and returned microscopic samples to Earth in 2010. Hayabusa encountered numerous problems that threatened to end the mission, including a fuel leak and a malfunction in its sampling mechanism, which caused it to collect much less sample material than originally planned.<\/p>\n

Japan\u2019s new asteroid mission incorporated several upgrades from Hayabusa, and it launched in December 2014 to kick off the three-and-a-half-year trip to Ryugu.<\/p>\n

Mission managers this week are also discussing where a European lander riding piggyback on Hayabusa 2 should land on Ryugu.<\/p>\n

The Mobile Surface Asteroid Scout, or MASCOT, is a tiny addition to the Hayabusa 2 mission. Developed by the German and French space agencies \u2014 DLR and CNES \u2014 the battery-powered lander measures 12 inches by 12 inches by 8 inches (30 x 30 x 20 centimeters), and it weighs just 22 pounds (10 kilograms).<\/p>\n

In early October, Hayabusa 2 will spring-eject the MASCOT spacecraft, aiming it toward a predetermined site on Ryugu for a slow-speed crash landing. Assuming the landing goes according to plan, MASCOT will power up its four instruments, including a camera, to survey the asteroid, then activate a swing arm to catapult to another part of Ryugu for more observations.<\/p>\n

The asteroid spans around 3,000 feet (900 meters) in diameter, and takes around 7.6 hours to complete one rotation. Ryugu\u2019s orbit loops it around the sun once every 1.3 years.<\/p>\n

The diminutive size of Ryugu translates to a tenuous gravity field estimated to be 60,000 times weaker than Earth\u2019s, meaning a relatively minor push could propel an object long distances across the asteroid, or even back into space.<\/p>\n

Ryugu is a C-type asteroid, and scientists believe it contains primitive building blocks left over the formation of the solar system 4.5 billion years ago.<\/p>\n

Ralf Jaumann from the DLR Institute of Planetary Research, principal investigator on MASCOT, says he is excited about the lander\u2019s exploration of Ryugu.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn all honesty, I have seen lots of asteroids before, but nothing quite like this,\u201d Jaumann said in an interview posted on DLR\u2019s website. \u201cThe many large boulders on the surface are extremely interesting! This is something that has never been seen. The Itokawa asteroid that was visited by the first Hayabusa mission also features boulders, but not as large or as homogenously distributed.<\/p>\n

\u201cRyugu also has more impact craters than other small asteroids,\u201d adds Jaumann, who also works as a scientist on NASA\u2019s Dawn mission to Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut what is really impressive are the numerous, very large boulders on the surface,\u201d Jaumann said. \u201cThis material appears to be much stronger than the fine material that we see. I am really looking forward to the lander being on the surface and being able to view such a boulder up close.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
Artist\u2019s illustration of the Hayabusa 2 and MASCOT spacecraft at asteroid Ryugu (not to scale). Credit: DLR<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Officials charged with selecting MASCOT\u2019s landing site have ruled out the asteroid\u2019s poles. Engineers also want to keep MASCOT away from a region where long periods of sunlight could cause it to overheat.<\/p>\n

Hayabusa 2\u2019s recent gravity measurement will feed into the decision on where to send MASCOT.<\/p>\n

\u201cGravity will affect how MASCOT bounces and this will influence the final position at which the released lander comes to rest,\u201d said Tra-Mi Ho, MASCOT project leader at DLR\u2019s Institute of Space Systems. \u201cInformation on the asteroid\u2019s thermal characteristics is also crucial. That is still lacking and is being examined at the moment. Another important aspect is the size of the rocks on Ryugu. A certain size of rock could cause MASCOT to get stuck.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the risk from Ryugu\u2019s boulders, officials were heartened to discover the asteroid does not have the unusual dual-lobe potato shape of comet 67P\/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, the destination where Europe\u2019s Rosetta spacecraft explored for more than two years, and deployed a lander named Philae.<\/p>\n

Philae and MASCOT were developed by many of the same engineers and scientists in Germany and France, but MASCOT is the smaller of the two. The lander set to arrive at Ryugu is designed to function for 16 hours \u2014 it can\u2019t recharge with solar power \u2014 and will relay images and other data to Earth through the Hayabusa 2 mothership<\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately, I was relieved that it was not a celestial body like the comet 67P\/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, on which Philae landed in November 2014,\u201d Ho said. \u201cAt least Ryugu is more consistently formed than 67P. Of course, we had qualms on seeing all those rocks \u2013 together with concerns about whether it would all be too challenging for MASCOT.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hayabusa 2 carries more deployable landers developed by Japanese scientists for placement on the surface of Ryugu over the next year-and-a-half.<\/p>\n

The mission is set to depart the asteroid in late 2019, with return to Earth scheduled for December 2020 with a parachute-assisted landing of Hayabusa 2\u2019s sample carrier in Australia.<\/p>\n

Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A wide-angle optical navigation camera on the Hayabusa 2 spacecraft captured this view of asteroid Ryugu on Aug. 6 as the spacecraft approached to a distance of less than 2,800 feet (851 meters) from the object. Credit: JAXA, University Tokyo, Koichi University, Rikkyo University, Nagoya University, Chiba Institute of Technology, Meiji University, University of Aizu, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1519,690,1914,242,455,1965,377,877],"class_list":["post-13644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-asteroids","tag-cnes","tag-dlr","tag-france","tag-germany","tag-hayabusa-2","tag-japan","tag-jaxa"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13644"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13644\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}