after traveling 300 million kilometers
from a distant asteroid
the japanese spacecraft hayabusa ii will
finally return to earth
in just a matter of days the first ever
samples from the asteroid yugu
could give scientists new insights into
the early evolution
of our solar system it's been years
since we last saw hayabusa 2
leave our planet in 2014 the spacecraft
launched from the tanigoshima space
center while aboard the h2a rocket
its mission to study and sample a c-type
asteroid
yugu is one of the smallest objects ever
visited by a spacecraft
but it's worth going to because c-type
asteroids are some of the most ancient
objects in our solar system scientists
speculate that they were created during
the violent beginnings of our solar
system's formation
and could also carry the building blocks
of life
these kinds of asteroids though are
quite carbon rich causing coal black
surfaces that actually make it very
difficult to see
and study from earth so when hayabusa 2
arrived at yugo in 2018
it was quite prepared to study the
asteroid like never
before this mission included not only
the main spacecraft with remote sensing
instruments
but also a lander small rovers a
sampling system
and an impactor to create a small crater
on the surface
that's right hyalusa 2 was equipped with
a carry-on
impactor that consisted of a small box
of explosives
and copper in april 2019 that box was
released
and created an artificial crater that
revealed preserved material
that could contain compounds from
roughly 4.5
billion years ago or even longer with
this new crater in july
2019 hayabusa 2 was the first spacecraft
to ever collect
that kind of subsurface sample but that
wasn't even the first time hayabusa 2
shot at the surface of hugo in february
2019
the spacecraft fired a bullet-like
projectile into the surface
causing about a tenth of a gram of
material to be collected
hopefully there's no way to know for
sure until it returns
but if the collection mission was
successful it would be the first time in
history
that the team returned pristine samples
of a carbonaceous asteroid
and this mission is full of firsts for
the team remember the rovers and lander
i mentioned
hayabusa 2 released them in 2018 to
build a better understanding of the
asteroid's surface
it was the first spacecraft to ever have
done so the first twin rovers called
minerva 2
1a and 1b were equipped with cameras
temperature sensors
an accelerometer and a gyroscope to
study the surface of the rock before the
sampling missions and instead of rolling
across yugu
they hopped since the asteroid's
gravitational pull was so
weak the rovers used rotating motors to
make jumps which could last about 15
minutes each
the final rover minerva 2 failed upon
deployment
now the lander named mascot didn't make
as many hops but was a special
collaboration with the german aerospace
center or dlr
and the french space agency cnes
it was equipped with a camera system
magnetometer an infrared spectrometer
and a radiometer now you might be
thinking how did jackson
know how to prepare for all of this well
the spacecraft
obviously had a predecessor called you
guessed it
hayabusa this was jax's first asteroid
sampling mission to the asteroid itakawa
in 2005.
it became the first mission to
successfully land take off
and return samples back to earth in 2010
but as successful as that mission was
there were a lot of lessons to learn the
lander that it sent to the surface
drifted off into space the sampling
system gathered only a fraction of what
it was intended for
and hayabusa broke apart during re-entry
to earth's atmosphere
but all these challenges are what made
hayabusa 2 that much better
so when hayabusa 2 flies by earth this
december its sample capsule will have a
fiery re-entry into our atmosphere
and make a parachute landing in the
south australian outback known as the
wumera range complex
once on the ground and located the jaxa
team will make preliminary analysis in
australia
before flying the samples back to japan
for further study
they'll have about a year to do their
own research before it gets sent out
internationally for everyone to take a
glimpse
at what could be the remnants of the
early solar system
and what about the hayabusa 2 spacecraft
well it's already scheduled for a new
mission
with its remaining fuel the spacecraft
will head to the asteroid targets 1998
ky
26 2001 cc21 as well as study the
celestial glow that travels through the
zodiac constellations
i think it goes without saying that
hayabusa 2 is a groundbreaking mission
and we'll just have to wait and see how
much more it can teach us
about the solar system we call home
hayabusa 2 isn't the only sample return
mission
osiris-rex is not too far behind with
its samples from the asteroid bennu
which is set to return
in 2023 if you want to know more about
that mission
check out this episode here don't forget
to subscribe and i'll see you next time
on seeker