JAPANESE SPACECRAFT REACHES TARGET, BUT TOUCHDOWN IS STILL AHEAD

Here’s the mission for Japan’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft in a nutshell: Fly to a carbon-rich asteroid between the orbits of Earth and Mars, study it for a year and a half and then bring back some pieces for additional study on Earth.

The Hayabusa2 was launched in 2014. On June 27, it reached its target, and is now some miles above Ryugu, an asteroid about half a mile wide. The Japanese astronomers studying it say it has the shape of a top or even an abacus bead.

Ryugu, as dark as coal, is a carbonaceous asteroid, meaning it is full of carbon molecules known as organics including possibly amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. Such molecules are not always associated with biology and can form from chemical reactions in deep space, but asteroids could have seeded Earth with the organic matter that led to life.

If it stays on schedule, by the end of July, Hayabusa2 will descend within 3.1 miles of Ryugu’s surface to measure the gravity field around the asteroid. In September or October, Hayabusa2 is to make its first “touchdown operation” on the asteroid.

At that point, it may deploy one or more of the three tiny rovers it is carrying. It may also deploy a European-built lander then.

Then it’ll take a hiatus in November and December, because the sun will be directly between Ryugu and Earth, blocking communications.

After that, the spacecraft will make a couple more touchdowns, as well as dropping a copper projectile into the asteroid to create a crater. That will allow the spacecraft to collect some material from beneath the surface.

At the end of 2019, Hayabusa2 is to leave the asteroid and head back to Earth. As it flies by in 2020, it’ll drop off a capsule with the asteroid samples.

JAXA, University of Tokyo, Koichi University, Rikkyo University, Nagoya University, Chiba Institute of Technology, Meiji University, Aizu University and AIST via The New York Times After a journey that started in 2014, the probe reached the Ryugu Asteroid on June 27 and will begin studying it for clues to the solar system’s origins.