How did I miss this!

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap180625.html

Hayabusa2 to land on Asteroid Ryugu, take a sample and return the sample to Earth. If all goes to plan, this will be the first significant sample return to Earth from any object further than the Moon.

Also, if anyone had told me yesterday that an asteroid is a perfect square shape I’d be ROFL.

It’s 162173 Ryugu (Dragon’s Castle), and Japan’s robotic Hayabusa2 mission is now arriving at this near-Earth asteroid. Ambitious Hayabusa2 is carrying an armada of separable probes, including two impactors, four small close-proximity hoverers, three small surface hoppers, and the Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout (MASCOT) which will land, study, and move around on Ryugu’s surface. Most of these are equipped with cameras. Moreover, Hayabusa2 itself is scheduled to collect surface samples and return these samples to Earth for a detailed analysis near the end of 2020. Previously, what was known about asteroid Ryugu was its orbit, that it spans about one kilometer, and that it has a dark surface that reflects unusual colors.

How many spacecraft is in that one package? Let’s add it up, 2+4+3+1+1 = 11 separate spacecraft. The Japanese are not doing things by halves this time.

What’s the schedule?

Hayabusa2 is expected to arrive in July 2018, survey the asteroid for a year and a half, depart in December 2019, and return to Earth in December 2020.

Thanks Moll. Really looking forward to following the progress on this one.

Holy space cube!

beware, it’s a Borg cube, disguised

send neutrino

From just 40 km away. It’s already there.

Pdf containing a Powerpoint type slide show telling me more than I want to know from 14 June at:

http://global.jaxa.jp/projects/sat/hayabusa2/pdf/Hayabusa2_Press20180614e.pdf

0．Hayabusa2 mission overview １．Current status and project schedule ２．Observation of Ryugu ３．Optical navigation ４．Search for satellites ５．Mission schedule ６．Future plans

mollwollfumble said:

From just 40 km away. It’s already there.

Landing on that looks a bit dicey. I hope it ends up square on its feet.

Going back to 2015. This is not your typical photo of Earth from space. Taken by Hayabusa2 looking down on Antarctica.

Hayabusa is the Japanese word for peregrine falcon.

Hayabusa2 is powered by ion engines, which accelerate charged atoms of xenon with an electric field to generate thrust. Ion engines are a very efficient form of propulsion but not very powerful. That means Hayabusa2 can carry much less fuel than traditional thrusters would require, but it also means that it could not take a quick, direct route. The spacecraft used a flyby of Earth in December 2015 to accelerate and match its trajectory with the tilted orbit of the asteroid.

mollwollfumble said:

Pdf containing a Powerpoint type slide show telling me more than I want to know from 14 June at:

http://global.jaxa.jp/projects/sat/hayabusa2/pdf/Hayabusa2_Press20180614e.pdf

0．Hayabusa2 mission overview １．Current status and project schedule ２．Observation of Ryugu ３．Optical navigation ４．Search for satellites ５．Mission schedule ６．Future plans

Oops. Link failed. Trying again.

http://global.jaxa.jp/projects/sat/hayabusa2/pdf/Hayabusa2_Press20180614e.pdf

A C type asteroid is better known as a carbonaceous type, like carbonaceous chondrite but slightly different. A key on recovery will be how much water and other volatiles (such as lightweight organic molecules) it contains, because these are lost in meteorites then they are heated plummeting to Earth.

The first task with be to create an artificial crater with an impactor in order to land on the site and sample subsurface material. A new idea I haven’t heard of before.

Three cameras, wide angle, narrow angle and thermal infrared – pretty standard now.

LIDAR altimeter and IR spectrograph – itching to see the results of the IR spectrograph – it’s used to identify organic chemicals.

It’s going down just a little closer, 20 km on June 27, before stopping to survey. Then going down to 5 km by end of July. Since even a small satellite of Ryushu could shatter Hayabusa2, they’re proceeding carefully. Ryushu has a diameter near 1 km. In August it will get closer, 1 km, to do a proper gravity map – they want to land where the surface is perpendicular to the gravity vector.

Touchdown and rover deployment September to October.

Two more touchdowns later and one more rover deployment later.

Press briefings planned for June 27, July 19, August 2, August 23.

Now at 20 km. No other news since above post. Official website

http://www.hayabusa2.jaxa.jp

Manga explanation of the Hayabsa2 project.

more on story

A Japanese spacecraft is about to rendezvous with a tiny asteroid orbiting between Earth and Mars.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2018-06-27/hayabusa-2-spacecraft-is-about-to-arrive-at-ryugu/9911680

“Hell Yes, Japan’s Hayabusa2 Spacecraft Has Officially Entered Orbit Around the Ryugu Asteroid” from https://gizmodo.com/hell-yes-japan-s-hayabusa2-spacecraft-has-officially-e-1827166767?IR=T

Earlier today, mission controllers at JAXA triggered Hayabusa2’s chemical propulsion thrusters, bringing the spacecraft into orbit around Ryugu, an asteroid that’s just shy of one kilometer wide. Confirmation of the rendezvous was made at 9:35 am Japan Standard Time (JST). JAXA says Hayabusa2’s thrusters worked normally, and that the spacecraft is maintaining a constant distance from Ryugu.

Technically “Our 9th Trajectory Control Manoeuvre (TCM09) for optical navigation was made on June 26 at ~10:10-10:20JST. Thrusters changed the velocity by ~0.8cm/s (-x), 0.3cm/s (+y), 10cm/s (+z). Ryugu to Hayabusa2 distance was ~23km & the speed towards the asteroid after TCM09 was ~2cm/s.”

I’ve been waiting for the above image – what’s interesting, and startling, to me is that the boulders on Itokawa and the boulders on Ryugu are the same size. Are both of “rubble pile” construction, and made the same way? Both are very different from anything else we’ve seen close-up in the solar system.

For those who want to experiment with stereoscopic vision, try the images below. Hey, it works.

Comparison of surface brightness of Ryugu and Earth. Ryugu is actually quite dark. Albedo is 0.05. Compare Earth with albedo 0.3.

That’s because carbon is a major element in its composition.

Elements from most to least common (by volume) are: oxygen, magnesium, iron, carbon, sulfur, aluminium, calcium, nitrogen, sodium, nickel.
From http://fti.neep.wisc.edu/neep602/FALL97/LEC15/scan15.gif

By mass, that’s Oxygen, Iron 20%, Silicon 15%, Magnesium 15%, Carbon between 0.02 & 2%, Sulfur 1.5%, Aluminium 1.5 to 2%, Calcium 1.5%, Nickel 1%, Sodium 0.4%, Chromium 0.3%, Phosphorus 0.1%, Nitrogen between 0.004% and 0.1%.
From https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Total-concentrations-of-elements-in-carbonaceous-chondrites-a_tbl1_266973094

Given that wide range of possibilities, I’m itching to know what the carbon concentration actually is.

No new image releases yet.

A lot more since last post about Hayabusa2.

For example, this 3-D close up comes from 2 Aug.

If you don’t have red-green glasses then the stereo pair on
https://www.instagram.com/p/BlvALGpB21a/?utm_source=ig_twitter_share&igshid=h9sa9dnvcaw1 also gives a 3-D view.

If you want a video with red-green glasses try http://www.hayabusa2.jaxa.jp/topics/20180710je/index.html

Sliw gif with full rotation for red-green glasses.

mollwollfumble said:

A lot more since last post about Hayabusa2.

For example, this 3-D close up comes from 2 Aug.

If you don’t have red-green glasses then the stereo pair on
https://www.instagram.com/p/BlvALGpB21a/?utm_source=ig_twitter_share&igshid=h9sa9dnvcaw1 also gives a 3-D view.

If you want a video with red-green glasses try http://www.hayabusa2.jaxa.jp/topics/20180710je/index.html

Sliw gif with full rotation for red-green glasses.

Very impressive.

Recognise it? No? If I said Hayabusa2 …

Fron http://www.hayabusa2.jaxa.jp/topics/20180807/index.html

Hayabusa blog (about one post per week) here http://www.hayabusa2.jaxa.jp/news/status/

A startling twitter about the Hayabusa spacecraft “On August 7, 2018 at 18:17, we reached GATE 6: return to home position acceleration (ΔV) adjusted from schedule due to “Typhoon Avoidance Manoeuvre”. ΔV was confirmed to be successfully executed. The spacecraft will return to the home position on August 10.”

A typhoon in space !?

No, the emergency was on the ground. Elizabeth Tasker explains:

“For clarification, this is a typhoon approaching Japan! The spacecraft is fine, but people need to be safe in the control room to continue operations”.

I had been thinking of buying one, but a mate has one and says his hands go numb from vibration in twenty minutes. I don’t like the sound of that.

Michael V said:

I had been thinking of buying one, but a mate has one and says his hands go numb from vibration in twenty minutes. I don’t like the sound of that.

Oh, not talking motorbikes? Bugger.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-45578795

Two robotic explorers are descending to the surface of an asteroid.
Japan’s Hayabusa-2 spacecraft despatched a pair of “rovers” to the 1km-wide space rock known as Ryugu.
If all goes well, Hayabusa-2 will be the first spacecraft to successfully place robot rovers on the surface of an asteroid.
Rover 1A and Rover 1B will move around by hopping in Ryugu’s low gravity; they will capture images of the surface and measure temperatures.
Hayabusa-2 reached the asteroid Ryugu in June this year after a three-and-a-half-year journey.
The 1km-wide space rock known formally as 162173 Ryugu belongs to a particularly primitive type of asteroid, and is therefore a relic left over from the early days of our Solar System. Studying it could shed light on the origin and evolution of our own planet.
The rovers are stored in drum-shaped container at the base of the Hayabusa-2 “mothership”. Collectively, they form a 3.3kg science package known as Minerva II-1.