{"id":16798,"date":"2014-12-02T19:30:05","date_gmt":"2014-12-02T11:30:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/japan-set-to-launch-asteroid-sample-return-mission\/"},"modified":"2014-12-02T19:30:05","modified_gmt":"2014-12-02T11:30:05","slug":"japan-set-to-launch-asteroid-sample-return-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/japan-set-to-launch-asteroid-sample-return-mission\/","title":{"rendered":"Japan set to launch asteroid sample return mission"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The
The Hayabusa 2 spacecraft is mated to the top of an H-2A launcher at the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan. Credit: JAXA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Japan is readying an H-2A rocket for liftoff Tuesday to kick off an audacious six-year roundtrip journey a carbon-rich asteroid, drop a fleet of landers to its surface, collect primordial rock samples, and return the materials to terrestrial laboratories for analysis.<\/p>\n

Scientists say the mission is a bigger, better version of Japan\u2019s Hayabusa probe, which overcame a series of crippling malfunctions to land on an asteroid in 2005 and make it back to Earth with microscopic specimens.<\/p>\n

The Hayabusa 2 mission set for launch at 0422:04 GMT Wednesday (11:22 p.m. EST Tuesday) aims to do the same job, but it carries more advanced instrumentation, multiple landing drones, and backup systems engineers say will reduce the craft\u2019s vulnerability to the problems that plagued Hayabusa.<\/p>\n

Liftoff is scheduled for 1:22 p.m. local time in Japan.<\/p>\n

Valued at nearly $300 million, the mission will begin the journey from the Tanegashima Space Center in southwestern Japan. It will take off aboard a 174-foot-tall H-2A launcher, which will rocket into the skies east of Tanegashima and release Hayabusa 2 on a trajectory heading away from Earth at 0609 GMT (1:09 a.m. EST) Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The rocket is carrying three smaller spacecraft riding piggyback with Hayabusa 2.<\/p>\n

One of the mini-probes, a 140-pound briefcase-sized craft named Procyon, will test out miniature satellite technologies in deep space and fly by an asteroid \u2014 a different object than Hayabusa 2\u2019s target \u2014 in early 2016 to take pictures and practice deep space navigation procedures.<\/p>\n

The other ride-along missions on Tuesday\u2019s launch are a small satellite built by students at Kagoshima University and a probe named Artsat 2, which was commissioned as an art project to dispatch an instrumented sculpture into the solar system with a transmitter to send radio signals back to Earth.<\/p>\n

Hitoshi Kuninaka, Hayabusa 2\u2019s project manager at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, said the launch is generating excitement throughout the country. The daring Hayabusa mission achieved many \u201cfirsts\u201d in the exploration of the solar system, putting Japan at the forefront of asteroid research.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people will be following this launch from Tanegashima and all over Japan,\u201d Kuninaka said in an interview. \u201cWe have a public viewing campaign all over Japan. A lot of the mass media, the newspapers, and the TV networks are really following the launch of Hayabusa 2.\u201d<\/p>\n