This spectacular photo shows the view from asteroid Ryugu from the Minerva-II1A rover during a hop after it successfully landed on Sept. 21, 2018. The probe is one of two that landed on Ryugu from the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency's Hayabusa2 spacecraft. It's the first time two mobile rovers landed on an asteroid.

The suspense is over: Two tiny hopping robots have successfully landed on an asteroid called Ryugu — and they've even sent back some wild postcards from their new home.

The tiny rovers are part of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Hayabusa2 asteroid sample-return mission. Engineers with the agency deployed the robots early Friday (Sept. 21), but JAXA waited until today (Sept. 22) to confirm the operation was successful and both rovers made the landing safely.

The rovers are part of the MINERVA-II1 program, and are designed to hop along the asteroid's surface, taking photographs and gathering data. In fact, one of the initial images sent home by the hoppers is awfully blurry, since the robot snapped it while still on the go.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Minerva-II1 rover captured this view of asteroid Ryugu (bottom) and the Hayabusa2 spacecraft (at top right) just after the rover separated from the spacecraft on Sept. 21, 2018. (Image credit: Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency)

In order to complete the deployment, the main spacecraft of the Hayabusa2 mission lowered itself carefully down toward the surface until it was just 180 feet (55 meters) up. After the rovers were on their way, the spacecraft raised itself back up to its typical altitude of about 12.5 miles above the asteroid's surface (20 kilometers).

The MINERVA-II1B rover captured this view of asteroid Ryugu on Sept. 21, 2018 shortly after separating from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Hayabusa2 spacecraft. The asteroid appears at lower right. (Image credit: Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency)

The agency still has two more deployments yet to accomplish before it can rest easy: Hayabusa2 is scheduled to deploy a larger rover called MASCOT in October and another tiny hopper next year. And of course, the main spacecraft has a host of other tasks to accomplish during its stay at Ryugu — most notably, to collect a sample of the primitive world to bring home to Earth for laboratory analysis.

Editor's note: This story was updated to correct the deployment descent altitude in feet; the measurement in meters remains correct.

Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her @meghanbartels. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.</s>JAXA, Japan’s space agency, said on Saturday, September 22, 2018, that two rovers released by its Hayabusa2 spaceraft have set down successfully on asteroid Ryugu, hundreds of millions of miles from Earth. The spacecraft traveled for four years before encountering Ryugu. JAXA has now released images taken by the rovers as they were ejected from the mother spacecraft, as well as other images captured as one of the probes bounced or hoped on the asteroid’s surface. JAXA said:

Ryugu is a space rock with a diameter of less than a mile (about 1 km) and classified as a potentially hazardous asteroid, with an orbit that occasionally brings it into Earth’s vicinity. The encounter and release of the small rovers occurred early on September 21 at a distance of 194 million miles (313 million km) from Earth.

The distance is so huge, that images sent by the Hayabusa2 spacecraft and its rovers take some 35 minutes to reach our planet.

Hayabusa2 arrived at asteroid Ryugu on June 27, 2018. Afterwards, for several weeks, the spacecraft remained at a distance of about 12 miles (20 km) above the asteroid. During the week of July 16, operations were begun to lower this hovering altitude, eventually bringing the spacecraft to less than 4 miles (6 km) from the asteroid surface.

According to JAXA, the rovers were released from an altitude of about 180 ft (55m).

The MINERVA-II rovers look more like cylinders or robotic wheels, and use capacitors and small solar cells for power.

Although the mission will measure Ryugu’s gravity, it is estimated to be some 60,000 times weaker than Earth’s gravity. This means that instead of roving over the surface of Ryugu, the rovers will be hoping and rotating over the surface, which is a wise design for exploring the huge asteroid despite its weak gravity.

Each rover measures about 7 inches (18 cm) in diameter and has a pair of cameras and a thermometer along its instruments.

On October, 2018 the Hayabusa 2 spacecraft will release Mascot, a lander built by the space agencies of France and Germany, will also land on the surface of Ryugu.

The Hayabusa 2 spacecraft was launched on 2014, and arrived at the huge asteroid after travelling some 2,000 million miles (3,200 million km). The spacecraft will be studying Ryugu until December, 2020, when it expected to start travelling back to Earth with collected samples from the asteroid surface, to be analyzed by scientists in laboratories.

Bottom line: Japan’s space agency JAXA confimed on Saturday, September 22, that two rovers released Friday from the Hayabusa2 spacecraft have set down successfully on asteroid Ryugu. See the images here.</s>A pair of robot rovers have landed on an asteroid and begun a survey, Japan’s space agency said Saturday, as it conducts a mission aiming to shed light on the origins of the solar system.

The rover mission marks the world’s first moving, robotic observation of an asteroid surface, according to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

The round, cookie tin-shaped robots successfully reached the Ryugu asteroid a day after they were released from the Hayabusa2 probe, the agency said.

“Each of the rovers is operating normally and has started surveying Ryugu’s surface,” JAXA said in a statement.

Taking advantage of the asteroid’s low gravity, the rovers will jump around on the surface – soaring as high as 15 metres and staying in the air for as long as 15 minutes – to survey the asteroid’s physical features.

“I am so proud that we have established a new method of space exploration for small celestial bodies,” said JAXA project manager Yuichi Tsuda.

The agency tried but failed in 2005 to land a rover on another asteroid in a similar mission.

Hayabusa2 will next month deploy an “impactor” that will explode above the asteroid, shooting a 2kg copper object to blast a small crater into the surface.

From this crater, the probe will collect “fresh” materials unexposed to millennia of wind and radiation, hoping for answers to some fundamental questions about life and the universe, including whether elements from space helped give rise to life on Earth.

The probe will also release a French-German landing vehicle named the Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout (MASCOT) for surface observation.

Hayabusa2, about the size of a large fridge and equipped with solar panels, 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.

The Hayabusa2 mission was launched in December 2014 and will return to Earth with its samples in 2020.</s>Japan's Hayabusa 2 probe launched in December 2014, arriving in orbit around the asteroid 162173 Ryugu this past June. Friday, the first of two small "rovers" — MINERVA-II 1A — slowly descended from the Hayabusa 2 mothership. MINERVA-II 1B will deploy sometime early next year.

​Just as it was about to touch down on the space rock, the asteroid's rotation took the craft out of view of Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) scientists in Chofu. They'll have to wait until Saturday morning to find out what happened.

"This is probably due to the rotation to Ryugu, and MINERVA-II1 is now on the far side of the asteroid," JAXA officials tweeted. "We are currently working to confirm if there are images capturing the MINERVA-II1 landing."

If their landings are successful, the two "rovers" will explore Ryugu's surface with a variety of scientific gear, including temperature and optical sensors and seven different cameras, Space.com noted.

Despite their name, the MINERVA [Micro Nano Experimental Robot Vehicle for Asteroid] rovers, which have a mass of only one kilogram and measure seven inches wide by 2.8 inches tall, won't roll across the asteroid's surface: they'll hop.

"Gravity on the surface of Ryugu is very weak, so a rover propelled by normal wheels or crawlers would float upwards as soon as it started to move," according to JAXA's mission page. "Therefore, this hopping mechanism was adopted for moving across the surface of such small celestial bodies. The rover is expected to remain in the air for up to 15 minutes after a single hop before landing, and to move up to 15 m [50 feet] horizontally."

What's more, computers on the rovers will decide themselves where to go next, meaning they won't have to wait out the timely delays in interstellar communication.

The mothership in orbit above the asteroid is a lander, too. Before all is said and done, it, too, will crash into Ryugu, plummeting down to the asteroid in 2019 to grab samples of subsurface material after impact. The capsule containing the sample will hopefully return to Earth for analysis in late 2020.

​The Hayabusa 2 mission altogether costs $150 million and has been undertaken with the German Aerospace Center and French space agency CNES.

Why spend all that money to go after dust on Ryugu? Well, for one, the asteroid is estimated to have as much as $80 billion worth of nickel and iron on it, and space mining is the next big thing, Sputnik has previously reported.

But also, there's a not-insignificant threat that the kilometer-wide Ryugu might hit Earth one day, according to NASA. Plus, the dust being collected from its surface is pristine, dating back to the earliest days of the solar system. That's invaluable for astronomers and astrophysicists who want to learn more about our system's formation 4.6 billion years ago.</s>A pair of tiny JAXA robots, released by the Hayabusa2 probe, have successfully landed on the Ryugu asteroid and began transmitting images from the surface of the “potentially hazardous” object four years after the mission launch.

The first images from the astronomical object flying at some 300 million kilometers from the Earth were received by Japan’s Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) immediately after the MINERVA-II1 rovers touched down on the asteroid on Friday.

The first image was taken after the separation of the two cylinder-shaped explorers from the Hayabusa2 space probe. Snapped while the rover was rotating, the blurred image shows Hayabusa2 at the top of the screen with the surface of Ryugu depicted at the bottom.

The second image received on Earth was captured by Rover-1B and shows a much clearer definition of the surface of Ryugu in the lower right corner, with sunlight reflection visible on the top left. The third image released by JAXA was snapped by Rover-1A as it hopped on the surface of its target, offering yet another glimpse of the mysterious object.

“MINERVA-II1 is the world’s first rover (mobile exploration robot) to land on the surface of an asteroid,” JAXA said. “This is also the first time for autonomous movement and picture capture on an asteroid surface.”

Measuring just 18-by-7cms and weighing about one kilo, MINERVA-II1 rovers will take advantage of Ryugu’s low gravity to hop about the surface of the asteroid, which is approximately one kilometer in diameter. The robots will take photos and temperature readings of Ryugu before Hayabusa2 space probe lands on the asteroid’s surface in 2019.

Hayabusa2 was launched in December 2014 and made its rendezvous with Ryugu in June this year. Once the probe completes taking samples from the asteroid, it will head back to Earth in late 2020.

Like this story? Share it with a friend!</s>A hopping space probe which will land on the surface of a large asteroid has been launched by the Japanese Space Agency.

The agency's spacecraft released two small exploration robots in a research project to find clues to the origin of the solar system.

Both Minerva-II rovers were lowered from the unmanned Hayabusa2, on to the asteroid Ryugu.

The rovers move around by hopping, because the gravity on the asteroid makes rolling difficult. Each hop lasts 15 minutes.

The spacecraft travelled to the asteroid, which is 170 miles (280m km) from Earth, and arrived in June.

The space agency (JAXA) said it would know if the robots have landed on Saturday, when they will send confirmation data of touchdown.

If the mission is successful it will be the first moving, robotic observation of an asteroid surface.

The two robots will capture images of the asteroid and measure temperatures before the agency sends a larger rover in October.

Yuichi Tsuda, JAXA project manager said: "We are very much hopeful. We don't have confirmation yet, but we are very, very hopeful.

"I am looking forward to seeing pictures. I want to see images of space as seen from the surface of the asteroid."

Shortly after the launch, the agency's Twitter account for the lander wrote: "Breathtaking... just breathtaking, don't you think? Go MINERVA II1 rovers! You're on your way to #Ryugu … and I'm next!"

JAXA also revealed it had lost communication with the robots, writing: "Communication with MINERVA-II1 has currently stopped. This is probably due to the rotation to Ryugu, and MINERVA-II1 is now on the far side of the asteroid.

"We are currently working to confirm if there are images capturing the MINERVA-II1 landing."

Next month Hayabusa2 will deploy an impactor which will explode above the asteroid, to blast a crater into its surface.

The probe will then collect fresh materials from inside the crater which have not been exposed to wind and radiation.

Hayabusa2 launched in December 2014 and is due back to Earth in 2020.

JAXA tried to launch a probe in 2005, but it failed to land on its target asteroid.</s>The Japanese space agency JAXA announced in August that its Hayabusa probe 2, which arrived at the 3,000-foot-wide asteroid Ryugu in June, will attempt to send a pair of special rovers to the surface of the extraterrestrial rock.

Now, after a lengthy space travel from Earth, the probe has finally deployed the two rovers called MINERVA-II1A and MINERVA-II1B, which were designed to study the asteroid. Space reported that the event happened on September 21, when the mother ship was about 180 feet above the rocks’ surface.

Landing probes on asteroids has proved difficult. The only probes that managed to have a soft touchdown on an asteroid are the original Hayabusa probe, which landed on the surface of the asteroid Itokawa in 2003; and NASA’s Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous-Shoemaker spacecraft, which landed on asteroid Eros in 2001.

If all goes as planned, the Minerva-II1 probes would have drifted down to touch down on the dusty surface of Ryugu.

JAXA officials confirmed clear signals from the two rovers after their deployment, but they admitted having lost contact, which they attribute to the rotation of the asteroid.

Officials said that the MINERVA-II1 duo is currently on the far side of the asteroid and they are working to confirm images that capture the landing of the robots. It may take a couple more days to confirm that the rovers are ready to perform their scientific duties.

MINERVA-II1A and MINERVA-II1B carry with them a range of scientific gear, which includes seven cameras, as well as temperature and optical sensors. The probes were designed to hop from place to place on the surface of their target asteroid.

Mission members explained that gravity on the asteroid’s surface is weak, so a rover propelled by wheels or crawlers would float upwards once it starts to move.

“This hopping mechanism was adopted for moving across the surface of such small celestial bodies,” mission team members said.

The Hayabusa 2 mission, which was launched in 2014, will grab samples from Ryugu and return these materials to Earth. The goal of the mission is to learn more about the target asteroid and get a better understanding of what asteroids are made of.

Astronomers are keen on studying asteroids like Ryugu because these objects are believed to be remnants of the early solar system and remained relatively unchanged over the past 4.5 billion.</s>The Japanese space agency said that it has made history by successfully landing two unmanned rovers on an asteroid.

"The two rovers are in good condition and are transmitting images and data," the agency, JAXA, said on 22 September after the rovers separated from the Hayabusa2 spacecraft and landed on the asteroid Ryugu.

The rovers are collectively known as MINERVA-II1, reports CNN.

The space agency reported that MINERVA-II1 is the world's first mobile exploration robot to land on the surface of an asteroid.

"I felt awed by what we had achieved in Japan. This is just a real charm of deep space exploration," said Takashi Kubota, a spokesman for the space agency.

The Hayabusa2 began its approach to Ryugu from an orbiting altitude of around 20 km on 21 September afternoon.

As the craft approached to within 100 metres of the space rock, it sent back a photo showing Hayabusa2's shadow projected onto its barren, cratered surface.

Beneath their desolate surfaces, asteroids are believed to contain a rich treasure-trove of information about the formation of the solar system billions of years ago.

The 1 km-wide space rock, which is shaped like a diamond, is expected to be "rich in water and organic materials", allowing scientists to "clarify interactions between the building blocks of Earth and the evolution of its oceans and life, thereby developing solar system science", according to JAXA.

A series of specially designed cameras — four on the first rover and three on the second — will take stereo images of the asteroid's surface.

The rovers are also equipped with temperature gauges and optical sensors as well as an accelerometer and a set of gyroscopes.

A third rover called MASCOT will be launched from Hayabusa2 in early October, CNN said.

After examining the far distant object and taking samples, Hayabusa2 will depart Ryugu in December 2019 before returning to Earth by the end of 2020 with its cargo of samples.

If successful, JAXA has said it will be the "world's first sample return mission to a C-type asteroid".</s>Today, Japan made history by landing two rovers onto the surface of an asteroid. The two rovers (named Rover-1A and 1B) fell from their mothership, Hayabusa2, less than 100 meters above diamond-shaped asteroid Ryugu. Now they are hopping across the rocky landscape in an unprecedented feat of exploration. This picture was taken by Rover-1A in mid-hop:

Hopping is necessary because the asteroid’s gravity is too weak for simple rolling. Instead of wheels, the rovers have rotating motors inside that allow them to shift their momentum and, thus, make little jumps across the asteroid’s rugged surface. Mission controllers are taking great care that the rovers, which measure 18 cm by 7 cm and weigh only 1 kg, do not fly into space.

As historic as this achievement is, it is only the beginning: The two rovers are on a reconnaissance mission for two more robots slated to land later this year. In October, Hayabusa2 will release MASCOT (Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout), a larger lander made by the German Aerospace Center. MASCOT will be followed, in turn, by another Japanese robot.



 Above: Hayabasa2 photographs its own shadow on the asteroid. Credit: JAXA

Exploring Ryugu is important. Classified as a potentially hazardous asteroid, this 900-meter wide space rock can theoretically come closer to our planet than the Moon. This makes it a potential target for asteroid mining. Hayabasa2 will discover what valuable metals may be waiting there. Ryugu is also a very primitive body, possibly containing a chemical history of the formation of our solar system billions of years ago.

Launched in December 2014, Hayabusa2 reached asteroid Ryuga in June of this year. It is scheduled to orbit the asteroid for about a year and a half before returning to Earth in late 2020, carrying samples of Ryugu for analysis by researchers</s>Japan has successfully landed two small robotic rovers on the asteroid Ryugu. The tiny body is currently located some 186 million miles (300 million kilometers) away from Earth. The duo was released from Japan’s Hayabusa 2 spacecraft orbiting the asteroid on Friday, September 21 and a confirmation of the successful landing came one day later.

The two tiny rovers, designated Rover-1A and Rover-1B, are part of the second MIcro Nano Experimental Robot Vehicle for Asteroid (MINERVA-II) project. They were deployed from Hayabusa 2’s MINERVA-II-1 container at about 00:06 EDT, September 21 at an altitude of approximately 180 feet (55 meters) above Ryugu.

On Saturday, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) confirmed that they landed on the asteroid’s surface and are transmitting data. The agency also released first images captured by the rovers during the landing.

The achievement marks the first time when rovers capable of maneuvering around the surface of a body, especially one as small as Ryugu have been successfully placed on an asteroid.

“I cannot find words to express how happy I am that we were able to realize mobile exploration on the surface of an asteroid. I am proud that Hayabusa 2 was able to contribute to the creation of this technology for a new method of space exploration by surface movement on small bodies,” said Yuichi Tsuda, Hayabusa 2 Project Manager.

Due to the asteroid’s weak gravitational pull, the rovers dropped slowly to the surface as there was risk that they could float off into space if they landed hard. After landing, the small robotic explorers started hopping and floating around to collect images and data.

The two cylinder-shaped rovers measure some 7.1 inch (18 centimeters) in diameter, 2.75 inch (7 centimeters) in height, and weigh around 2.42 lbs. (1.1 kilograms) each. Rover-1A is equipped in four cameras, while Rover-1B has three cameras onboard.

MINERVA-II is the successor of MINERVA rover installed in Hayabusa spacecraft that landed on asteroid Itokawa in November 2005 and returned a sample of material from it to Earth. Although Hayabusa managed to land on the asteroid, MINERVA failed to reach the surface.

“I was so moved to see these small rovers successfully explore an asteroid surface because we could not achieve this at the time of Hayabusa, 13 years ago. I was particularly impressed with the images taken from close range on the asteroid surface,” said Makoto Yoshikawa, Hayabusa 2 Project Mission Manager.

Weighing some 0.6 metric tons, the Hayabusa 2 spacecraft was launched on December 3, 2014 by JAXA on mission to explore asteroid Ryugu, retrieve materials from it and bring them to Earth. It arrived at Ryugu on June 27, 2018 and is scheduled to depart from the asteroid in December 2019 in order to return to our planet in December 2020.

Ryugu in an Apollo-type potentially hazardous asteroid (PHA), with a diameter of around 0.6 miles (1 kilometer). Study of this asteroid could be important for planetary researchers as it may contain organic matter and water.

If everything goes according to the plan, Hayabusa 2 will also deploy the Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout (MASCOT) lander developed by German Aerospace Center (DLR) on October 3, 2018 and Rover-2 in 2019, which is similar in size and design to the duo of rovers already on the surface.
The Japanese space agency JAXA announces that a pair of 18-centimetre (7.1 in) tall robots successfully landed on asteroid Ryugu.