The probe was due to fire a pellet into the surface of the asteroid to try to capture dust

This article is more than 6 months old

This article is more than 6 months old

A Japanese spacecraft has successfully touched down on a speeding asteroid 300 million kilometres from the Earth as it attempts an audacious manoeuvre to collect samples and bring them back for scientists to study.

The Hayabusa 2 probe touched down on the asteroid Ryugu at around 11:30pm GMT on Thursday. Data from the probe showed changes in speed and direction, indicating it had reached the asteroid’s surface, according to officials from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

A live webcast of the control room showed dozens of JAXA staff members nervously monitoring data ahead of the touchdown before exploding into applause after receiving a signal from Hayabusa2 that it had landed.

Japan’s Hayabusa 2 probe to fire pellet at asteroid to obtain samples Read more

“We made a successful touchdown, including firing a bullet” into the Ryugu asteroid, Yuichi Tsuda, Hayabusa 2 project manager, told reporters.

“We made the ideal touchdown in the best conditions,” he said.

JAXA spokeswoman Chisato Ikuta said the control centre had “received data that shows that the probe is working normally and is healthy.”

Scientists are continuing to gather and analyse data from the probe, she said.

The probe was due to fire a bullet at the Ryugu asteroid, to stir up surface matter, which it will then collect for analysis back on Earth. The asteroid is thought to contain relatively large amounts of organic matter and water from some 4.6 billion years ago when the solar system was born.

The complicated procedure took less time than expected and appeared to go without a hitch, said Hayabusa 2 mission manager Makoto Yoshikawa.

“I’m really relieved now. It felt very long until the moment the touchdown happened,” he said.

He said the firing of the bullet - the first of three planned in this mission - “will lead to a leap, or new discoveries, in planetary science.”

The spacecraft is seeking to gather 10g of the dislodged debris with an instrument named the Sampler Horn that hangs from its underbelly.

Whatever material is collected by the spacecraft will be stored onboard until Hayabusa 2 reaches its landing site in Woomera, South Australia, in 2020 after a journey of more than three billion miles.

The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency published live updates of the landing on Thursday night, and spirits were high.

In footage broadcast from the control room, presenters repeatedly described the smiles on the faces of team members. When Doppler data came through showing “behaviour as expected” after the spacecraft landed, the official Twitter account for the mission reported “cheers went up with a clap!”

But there was no rest for the team, with the Hayabusa 2 account tweeting: “A group photograph was taken in the control room. Now everyone is back to work again.”

Hayabusa 2 caught up with Ryugu in June last year after a three-and-a-half-year journey to intercept it. Mission controllers at the Japanese space agency had planned to touch down in October, but delayed the attempt after cameras revealed the surface to be far rockier than expected.

The asteroid belongs to a family of space rocks that are the most primitive building blocks of the solar system. “This is the material that didn’t get swept up into planets, it got left behind,” said John Bridges, a professor of planetary science at the University of Leicester. “The reason we want to study it is that this is what material was like at year zero.”

Similar material falls to Earth as meteorites, but it is battered and burned as it tears through the atmosphere and quickly becomes contaminated when it thumps into the ground. The asteroid material from Hayabusa 2 will show scientists what meteorite material is like before it plunges to Earth.</s>The fact that most drivers occasionally have trouble maneuvering a car into a tight space makes it all the more remarkable that the very same species has just parked a satellite onto a small boulder-strewn asteroid hurtling through the universe millions of miles from Earth.

The astonishing feat was achieved by Japan’s space agency (JAXA) at about 3 p.m. PT on February 21 when it landed Hayabusa2 on the asteroid Ryugu.

The successful touchdown on the 900-meter-wide space rock was met with enthusiastic applause at JAXA’s Tsukuba Space Center near Tokyo, and allowed the team to proceed to the next stage of the highly complex mission, which should ultimately see a sample from the space rock returned to Earth.

Shortly before descending onto Ryugu, Hayabusa2 fired what is essentially a 2-kilogram bullet into the asteroid in a bid to throw up particles that it’s now attempting to collect. JAXA has confirmed that the bullet fired as planned, though we’re still waiting for news about whether the rock sample has been successfully gathered.

Next, Hayabusa2 will return to its home position a short distance from the asteroid, a maneuver that’s expected to take around 11 hours to complete.

Easily the second most astonishing moment of the day’s events was the unexpected appearance of Queen guitarist and astrophysicist Brian May in JAXA’s live video feed.

Just minutes before Hayabusa2 touched down, the space enthusiast wished the team “absolutely the best of luck in this incredibly delicate maneuver,” adding, “My heart is with you … we love you Hayabusa2.”

Hayabusa2 reached Ryugu in June 2018 after a journey of three-and-a-half years. Since arriving, it’s been staying close to the asteroid, tracking it as it hurtles through space.

It’s also been carrying out various exploratory activities, and in September successfully deployed two rovers onto the rock. The rovers have been capturing close-up images of their surroundings, and performing tasks such as taking temperature readings of the asteroid’s surface.

If all goes to plan, the sample collected by Hayabusa2 is expected to reach Earth toward the end of 2020, with scientists hoping the asteroid particles will offer new insight into the development of our planet, our solar system, and possibly beyond.</s>Japan's Space Agency (JAXA) has been in a cosmic car chase with the spinning top asteroid, Ryugu, since June 2018 -- and now, it's fired the first shot.

JAXA's Hayabusa2 spacecraft successfully landed on the potentially-hazardous asteroid Ryugu just before 3 p.m. PT on Feb. 22 to a spattering of applause and high-fives.

"We did it! We made it!" said Seiichiro Watanabe on the livestream, project scientist with Hayabusa2, moments after touchdown.

Hayabusa2 was designed to land on the rocky asteroid and collect a sample from its surface within just a matter of minutes. To do so, Hayabusa2 descends into position just above the surface and fires a tantalum bullet at the asteroid at around 650 miles per hour to kick up dust and debris. The team had previously simulated this process on Earth and crossed their fingers that all would go well 180 million miles away, too.

Hayabusa2's landing site on the asteroid was close to the equator, just east of Brabo crater, which gets its name from a Dutch story "Brabo and the giant". Ryugu itself was named after a dragon's palace in a popular Japanese folk tale and shares many names with fairy tales of old.

Before the final touchdown, Brian May, rock legend, astronomer and Queen guitarist, appeared on the stream before Hayabusa was ready to touch down. May was also present when NASA's New Horizons zipped past the most distant world we've yet explored.

"Now I'm hugely happy to be, in a sense, part of the Hayabusa family because I've been able to process some images from Ryugu and this has been a thrill -- and it's a labour of love for me," the rockstar said.

At 3:08 p.m. PT, JAXA confirmed that Hayabusa 2 had successfully begun to rise from the surface of Ryugu.

"The results [are] exactly as we planned, there was some deviation from the simulation graph, but the results are such that everything went according to plan and that's impressive," Junichiro Kawaguchi, Hayabusa2 project manager, said shortly after the touchdown.

The sample collection process only takes a matter of seconds and a "sample horn" collects the pieces of rock that flow out of the bullet wound. The maneuver was successful, according to JAXA's data, but what was collected?

"Of course, we don't know if the sample is collected," Kawaguchi continued, "we have to wait and see."

Unfortunately, there are no detectors or sensors on board to tell us exactly what Hayabusa2 picked up -- that will have to wait until the plucky little spacecraft returns to Earth.

Notably, Hayabusa2 is fitted with more than one bullet -- it's actually a three-chambered space-gun! That gives Hayabusa2 another two chances to kick up more debris from Ryugu and potentially grab even more samples. Ryugu is expected to return to Earth in 2020.

NASA's own asteroid sample-retrieval mission, OSIRIS-REx, is currently in orbit around another potentially hazardous asteroid known as Bennu. It is expected to return to Earth with a sample from that asteroid in 2023 and NASA will share those results with its Japanese counterparts.

This story is developing and will be constantly updated.</s>A Japanese space probe named after a falcon, Hayabusa2, has touched down on an asteroid more than 300 million km (186 million miles) from Earth on a mission to seek clues about the origins of life, Japan's space agency said on Friday.

The spacecraft's landing on the asteroid Ryugu, just 900 metres (3,000 feet) in diameter, came after an initial attempt in October was delayed because it was difficult to pick a landing spot on the asteroid's rocky surface.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, said on Friday Hayabusa2 fired a small projectile into the surface of Ryugu to collect particles scientists hope the spacecraft will bring back to Earth for analysis.

"We may have caused some worry due to the delay but we carried out our plan flawlessly over the past four months to bring it to a successful landing," project manager Yuichi Tsuda told a news conference.

"It landed in the best circumstances among the scenarios we envisioned," he said.

It is the second Japanese spacecraft to land on an asteroid after Hayabusa touched down on a near-Earth asteroid named Itokawa in 2005. It was the first to bring asteroid dust back to Earth, although not as much as hoped.

Asteroids are believed to have formed at the dawn of the solar system and scientists say Ryugu may contain organic matter that may have contributed to life on Earth.

JAXA's plan is for Hayabusa2 to lift off Ryugu and touch back down up to three times. It blasted off in December 2014 and is scheduled to return to Earth at the end of 2020.</s>A Japanese spacecraft has successfully touched down on an asteroid some 280 million kilometres from the Earth, on a mission to collect material that could provide clues about the origin of life and the solar system.

Data from the probe, Hayabusa2, showed changes in speed and direction, indicating it had landed on the distant Ryugu asteroid and was blasting back to its orbiting position, officials from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said on Thursday.

A live webcast of the control room showed dozens of JAXA staff members nervously monitoring data ahead of the touchdown before exploding into applause after receiving a signal from the probe, Hayabusa2, that it had landed.

Japan's spacecraft was due to fire a bullet at the asteroid to stir up surface matter, which the probe will then collect for analysis back on Earth.

The asteroid is thought to contain relatively large amounts of organic matter and water from some 4.6bn years ago when the solar system was born.

Hayabusa2 will eventually fire an "impactor" to blast out material from underneath Ryugu's surface, allowing the collection of "fresh" materials unexposed to millennia of wind and radiation.

Scientists hope those samples may provide answers to some fundamental questions about life and the universe, including whether elements from space helped give rise to life on Earth.

After the landing, the probe was to return to its orbit above Ryugu, with further touchdowns planned for later in the year.

Communication with Hayabusa2 is cut off at times because its antennas are not always pointed towards Earth and it could take several more days to confirm the bullet was actually fired to allow the collection of samples.

Photos of Ryugu - which means "Dragon Palace" in Japanese and refers to a castle at the bottom of the ocean in an ancient Japanese tale - show an asteroid shaped a bit like a spinning top with a rough surface.

The mission has not been completely plain sailing and the probe's landing was originally scheduled for last year.

But it was pushed back after surveys found the asteroid's surface was more rugged than initially thought, forcing JAXA to take more time to find a suitable landing site.

The Hayabusa2 mission, with a price tag of around 30bn yen ($270m), was launched in December 2014 and is scheduled to return to Earth with its samples in 2020.

Hayabusa2 observes the surface of the asteroid with its camera and sensing equipment but has also dispatched two tiny MINERVA-II rover robots as well as the French-German robot MASCOT to help surface observation.

Scientists are already receiving data from these probes deployed on the surface of the asteroid.

At about the size of a large fridge, Hayabusa2 is equipped with solar panels and is the successor to JAXA's first asteroid explorer, Hayabusa - Japanese for falcon.

That probe returned from a smaller, potato-shaped, asteroid in 2010 with dust samples despite various setbacks during its epic seven-year Odyssey and was hailed as a scientific triumph.</s>Hayabusa2’s project manager Yuichi Tsuda has said that the hand of mankind 'has reached a new star today,' after Japan's probe successfully extracted a sample from the surface of the Ryugu asteroid.

In a glorious feat, Japan’s Hayabusa2 probe has managed to land on Ryugu and capture a sample from the C-type asteroid. After the probe exited its orbit, it landed on the surface of the asteroid only momentarily, but was also able to retrieve a sample from the asteroid despite the many challenges associated with this complex endeavor.

According to BGR, to pull off capturing a sufficient quantity of dust from Ryugu, as soon as the Hayabusa2 probe touched down on the asteroid the probe had to aim a bullet squarely at its surface.

As the probe’s handlers were 180 million miles away on Earth, there was no way that any direct control could be exerted upon the spacecraft, which meant that all of the engineers involved with Japan’s space program JAXA had to sit back and wait to get word from Hayabusa2 on whether its mission was successful.

Because there were delays of approximately 20 minutes when communicating with the distant probe, engineers were hopeful that all of their hard work had paid off, and in this they were not disappointed.

JAXA have now announced that they were able to shoot a projectile straight into Ryugu, quickly and smoothly retrieving a sample of the surface dust, after which the Hayabusa2 probe went back into orbit around the asteroid.

Yuichi Tsuda, the project manager of the Hayabusa2 mission, was elated over its success, and explained to the media that he was extremely relieved at the moment.

As Spaceflight Now have reported, Tsuda also stated, “Mankind’s hand has reached a new star today.”

The Hayabusa2 mission marks the second occasion that Japan has managed to retrieve samples from the surface of an asteroid. Japan’s first spacecraft to achieve this was its Hayabusa probe, which was sent to the asteroid Itokawa. However, on this particular occasion the probe only extracted very tiny specimens from the asteroid after suffering from a large number of difficulties with the project.

These included a fuel leak, reaction wheel failures and a problem with the system that was intended to be used to fire projectiles into the asteroid. Due to these issues, Hayabusa took what it could get and flew its microscopic sample back to Earth in 2010.

While Tsuda isn’t entirely certain how large of a sample has been collected from Ryugu, which was taken from the name of a dragon’s palace in a fairy tale about the adventures of Urashima Tarō, he believes that the Hayabusa2 probe almost certainly obtained a “decent amount of sample” from the asteroid.</s>The Hayabusa 2 probe had an eventful evening yesterday, some 186 million miles (300 million kilometers) from Earth. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) sent a long-awaited command, and the probe landed on the surface of the asteroid Ryugu, shot it with a bullet, and floated back upward. The goal was to collect material from the asteroid, but we don’t know how much asteroid regolith Hayabusa 2 scooped up.

JAXA had to plan the landing very carefully — Hayabusa 2 was too far away to control in real-time, so the probe had to run on autopilot. Surface analysis carried out with the MINERVA-II1A and MINERVA-II1B landers showed the surface of Ryugu to be much more uneven than the team had expected. Hayabusa 2 needed enough open space to extend its sampling horn to make contact with the surface.

According to JAXA, Hayabusa 2 made it to the surface as intended. As soon as it made contact, the probe fired off a 5-gram “bullet” composed of the high-density metal tantalum at more than 300 meters per second. The impact created a cloud of dust and rock fragments, some of which fell into the collection tube. JAXA confirms that Hayabusa 2 has retreated to a safe distance following the sample collection.

Hayabusa 2 still has another tantalum bullet in the chamber with Ryugu’s name on it. JAXA hasn’t offered specifics on when it will use that one, but a subsurface sampling is currently scheduled for April of this year. The surface of Ryugu has been exposed to solar radiation for billions of years, so material inside the asteroid may have a different composition. To get at it, Hayabusa 2 is going to have to blast a crater.

To do that, the probe will use the Small Carry-on Impactor (SCI). Hayabusa 2 will deploy this device and then retreat to a safe distance on the other side of the asteroid. The SCI carries an HMX shaped explosive charge that will accelerate a 5.5 pound (2.5 kilograms) copper impactor into the surface. Hayabusa 2 will wait about two weeks for the particulates to settle before descending into the newly formed crater to grab a sample.

JAXA hopes to get as much as 100 milligrams of material from Ryugu over the course of the mission. We won’t know for certain how much of Ryugu Hayabusa 2 collected until the sample return container gets back to Earth in late 2020.</s>The Japanese space probe is expected to make contact with Asteroid Ryugu later tonight after final approach manoeuvres started at 9.45pm GMT. The incredible endeavour, organised by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is streaming the mission online. You can watch the asteroid landing online here on Express.co.uk courtesy of JAXA, via the embedded YouTube video below. Hayabusa’s asteroid landing comes after the Japanese spacecraft first encountered Ryugu in June last year.

Tonight, the space probe will approach a pre-selected landing spot on Ryugu sometime around 11pm GMT. At 9.14pm GMT today, JAXA confirmed the space probe has begun its descent to the asteroid on its automatic systems. Then at 9.57 GMT, the space agency confirmed the spacecraft was only 820ft (250m) over the asteroid. At 10.05pm GMT, Habauysa’s altitude was recorded at 656.2ft (200m) above Ryugu. READ MORE: NASA warning as glacier TWICE the size of New York about to COLLAPSE - Countdown begins

Before the mission was given the green light to go earlier today, Hayabusa-2 hovered over the space rock at a distance of about 12.5 miles (20km). The spacecraft then spent the next few hours, gradually approaching and accelerating towards Ryugu. Unfortunately, once the probe lands on Ryugu, Hayabusa’s position will make it impossible to beam images back to JAXA on Earth. However, in the run-up to the landing, JAXA received a number of the incredible photos of asteroid Ryugu slowly coming into sight.

Because of the breathtaking distance between the spacecraft and the Earth, it took a whole 19 minutes for the photos to reach our home planet. Once Hayabusa touches down on Ryugu, it will fire bullets into the asteroid to dislodge bits and pieces of space rock. The asteroid debris will be sucked up back into Hayabusa for return to Earth. If Hayabusa successfully collects the space rock samples, the spacecraft will head back out into orbit around the asteroid.

This orbital “home position” sits roughly 12.5 miles (20km) above the asteroid. Hayabusa-2 will continue to work on the asteroid before the time comes to return to Earth. JAXA expects its groundbreaking spacecraft to head back to Earth at some point by the end of the year. The asteroid samples will not be picked up on Earth at least until 2020.</s>A Japanese spacecraft has successfully touched down on an asteroid some 280 million kilometres from the Earth, on a mission to collect material that could provide clues about the origin of life and the solar system.

Data from the probe, Hayabusa2, showed changes in speed and direction, indicating it had landed on the distant Ryugu asteroid and was blasting back to its orbiting position, officials from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said on Thursday.

A live webcast of the control room showed dozens of JAXA staff members nervously monitoring data ahead of the touchdown before exploding into applause after receiving a signal from the probe, Hayabusa2, that it had landed.

Japan ‘s spacecraft was due to fire a bullet at the asteroid to stir up surface matter, which the probe will then collect for analysis back on Earth.

The asteroid is thought to contain relatively large amounts of organic matter and water from some 4.6bn years ago when the solar system was born.

Hayabusa2 will eventually fire an “impactor” to blast out material from underneath Ryugu’s surface, allowing the collection of “fresh” materials unexposed to millennia of wind and radiation.

Scientists hope those samples may provide answers to some fundamental questions about life and the universe, including whether elements from space helped give rise to life on Earth.

After the landing, the probe was to return to its orbit above Ryugu, with further touchdowns planned for later in the year.

Communication with Hayabusa2 is cut off at times because its antennas are not always pointed towards Earth and it could take several more days to confirm the bullet was actually fired to allow the collection of samples.

Photos of Ryugu – which means “Dragon Palace” in Japanese and refers to a castle at the bottom of the ocean in an ancient Japanese tale – show an asteroid shaped a bit like a spinning top with a rough surface.

The mission has not been completely plain sailing and the probe’s landing was originally scheduled for last year.

But it was pushed back after surveys found the asteroid’s surface was more rugged than initially thought, forcing JAXA to take more time to find a suitable landing site.

The Hayabusa2 mission, with a price tag of around 30bn yen ($270m), was launched in December 2014 and is scheduled to return to Earth with its samples in 2020.

Hayabusa2 observes the surface of the asteroid with its camera and sensing equipment but has also dispatched two tiny MINERVA-II rover robots as well as the French-German robot MASCOT to help surface observation.

Scientists are already receiving data from these probes deployed on the surface of the asteroid.

At about the size of a large fridge, Hayabusa2 is equipped with solar panels and is the successor to JAXA’s first asteroid explorer, Hayabusa – Japanese for falcon.

That probe returned from a smaller, potato-shaped, asteroid in 2010 with dust samples despite various setbacks during its epic seven-year Odyssey and was hailed as a scientific triumph. DM

Are You A South AfriCAN or a South AfriCAN'T?

Maverick Insider is more than a reader revenue scheme. While not quite a "state of mind", it is a mindset: it's about believing that independent journalism makes a genuine difference to our country and it's about having the will to support that endeavour.

From the #GuptaLeaks into State Capture to the Scorpio exposés into SARS, Daily Maverick investigations have made an enormous impact on South Africa and it's political landscape. As we enter an election year, our mission to Defend Truth has never been more important. A free press is one of the essential lines of defence against election fraud; without it, national polls can turn very nasty, very quickly as we have seen recently in the Congo.

If you would like a practical, tangible way to make a difference in South Africa consider signing up to become a Maverick Insider. You choose how much to contribute and how often (monthly or annually) and in exchange, you will receive a host of awesome benefits. The greatest benefit of all (besides inner peace)? Making a real difference to a country that needs your support.

Please or create an account to view the comments. To join the conversation, sign up as a Maverick Insider.</s>Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa-2 began its descent to touch its asteroid target and collect fragments of it to help scientists on Earth understand the solar system's origin and how life on Earth came to exist.

While this slow descent was delayed by about five hours for a safety check, Hayabusa2 is still due to touch down on Friday morning, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said.

Once on the surface, Hayabusa2 will extend a pipe and shoot a pinball-like bullet into the asteroid. This, to blow up material from beneath the surface and collect the fragments to return to Earth.

Here's more about how the zany idea to 'shoot' Ryugu is expected to work.

JAXA plans to grab a sample from the asteroid using robotic arms on Hayabusa-2 and to repeat the manoeuvre two more times on different days and from different sites on the asteroid.

If all goes successfully, the craft will then collect samples that would eventually be sent back to Earth, but the landing (even if only for a few seconds) will be a challenging one. The surface of asteroid Ryugu is uneven and covered with boulders.

Hayabusa2 is aiming for a spot with a 6-meter-diameter circle of room for it to avoid getting damaged. JAXA engineers will control the spacecraft's approach until it is 500 meters above the surface of Ryugu.

After that, Hayabusa-2 is on its own — that's for its own good, too! It takes roughly 20 minutes for commands from Earth to reach the spacecraft, making it impossible for it to be controlled any way other than automated.

The asteroid, named 'Ryugu' after an undersea palace in Japanese folklore, is roughly 280 million kilometers from Earth. And while the landing won't be streamed live from all those million kilometres away, a stream from the mission control room at JAXA will be available on their YouTube channel starting 3.15 am IST on Friday.

Tech2 is now on WhatsApp. For all the buzz on the latest tech and science, sign up for our WhatsApp services. Just go to Tech2.com/Whatsapp and hit the Subscribe button.
JAXA's Hayabusa2 space probe successfully lands on Apollo asteroid 162173 Ryugu.