Japan's Two Hopping Rovers Successfully Land on Asteroid Ryugu

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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.





Hayabusa2

Hayabusa2 is an asteroid sample-return mission operated by the Japanese space agency, JAXA. It follows on from Hayabusa and addresses weak points identified in that mission.[5] Hayabusa2 was launched on 3 December 2014 and rendezvoused with near-Earth asteroid 162173 Ryugu on 27 June 2018.[6] It is in the process of surveying the asteroid for a year and a half, departing in December 2019, and returning to Earth in December 2020.

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At the end of the Hayabusa2 mission in December 2019,[9] the spacecraft will use its ion engines for changing orbit and return to Earth.[35] In December 2020,[9] the re-entry capsule with a container that carries the asteroid samples will be released to re-enter Earth's atmosphere at 12 km/second.[35]