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A Japanese spacecraft is on its intended trajectory, space agency officials said, as it approaches Earth to deliver a capsule containing samples from a distant asteroid that could provide clues to the origin of the solar system and life on Earth. .
Hayabusa2 left the asteroid Ryugu, about 180 million miles away, a year ago. The capsule will launch 136,700 miles into space and land in a remote and sparsely populated area of Woomera, Australia, on Sunday.
Hayabusa2 is flying smoothly according to plan, Yuichi Tsuda, a project manager for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), said in a briefing ahead of the critical separation of the capsule from the spacecraft on Saturday.
“We trained and now we are fully prepared. So I’m just praying that the equipment that hasn’t been used yet works well and that there is good weather in Australia, ”he said. “We are very excited.”
In the early hours of Sunday, the capsule, protected by a heat shield, will briefly turn into a fireball when it re-enters the atmosphere 120 kilometers above Earth. Approximately six miles above the ground, a parachute will open to slow your fall and beacon signals will be transmitted to indicate your location.
JAXA personnel have installed satellite dishes at various locations in the target area to receive the signals, while also preparing marine radars, drones and helicopters to assist in the search and recovery of the dish-shaped capsule, which is 15 inches in diameter. .
Scientists say they believe the samples, especially those taken below the asteroid’s surface, contain valuable data that is unaffected by space radiation and other environmental factors. They are particularly interested in analyzing organic materials in samples.
JAXA hopes to find clues about how materials are distributed in the solar system and how they relate to life on Earth.
For Hayabusa2, it is not the end of the mission that began in 2014. After dropping the capsule, it will return to space and head to another small distant asteroid called 1998KY26 on a 10-year one-way trip.
So far, your mission has been totally successful. It landed twice on Ryugu, despite an extremely rocky surface, and collected data and samples during the 18 months it spent near Ryugu after arriving in June 2018.
On its first landing in February 2019, it collected dust samples from the surface. On a more challenging mission in July of that year, it collected underground samples of the asteroid for the first time in space history after landing in a crater it previously created by blowing up the asteroid’s surface.
Asteroids, which orbit the sun but are much smaller than planets, are among the oldest objects in the solar system and can help explain how Earth evolved.
Ryugu in Japanese means Dragon Palace, the name of a castle at the bottom of the sea in a Japanese folk tale.
