The Hayabusa 2 Project
By: Jaekeb Harper
Scientists and theologians have been debating the origin of life for centuries now. Maybe it started with just the right materials in an undersea vent, or maybe it was a god? It is possible, according to the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), that the material of life may have arrived to our planet from somewhere outside of the solar system. “The main purpose of this mission is to know the origin and evolution of [the] solar system. We want to find the original material of life.” says Makoto Yoshikawa, a leading scientist and the mission manager for JAXA’s ongoing project: Hayabusa 2.
The Hayabusa 2 Project is JAXA’s ongoing, daring mission to bring plentiful samples of an asteroid back to Earth to find their composition and see if it may have neem suitable to develop life. In order to do this, Hayabusa 2 must enter orbit around an asteroid, launch a lander multiple times to collect samples of the asteroid’s surface, and safely bring those samples back down to Earth. In the words of a spokesperson from DLR, the German Space Agency, “To get three samples from an asteroid, fully investigate the asteroid, place a lander on this asteroid, investigate on site and then fire at it is almost impossible. This is a crazy mission.”
Not any asteroid will do, however. JAXA has selected an asteroid named Ryugu for the mission. Ryugu, or more formally 162173 Ryugu, is a rare Cg type asteroid, meaning it contains materials commonly found in both types. It is also one of the only asteroids large enough -Ryugu has a mass of approximately 4.5 x 10^11- that is within the radius of Mars. Ultimately, Ryugu was found to be one of only two, the other being a slightly smaller asteroid named Bennu, suitable asteroids known to man. “We know a lot about how planets are formed. What we don’t know is the first 100 million years,” says principal investigator for the German space agency Ralf Juamman, “Only asteroids can help here, and Ryugu is of a class of asteroid that is very, very pristine.”
The first objective of the Hayabusa 2 was to collect an interior sample of the asteroid. An explosive was fired from the probe onto the surface of Ryugu, which, while Hayabusa hid on the other side of the asteroid, both flattened out a landing spot for the craft and uncovered more interior material. Then, Hayabusa 2 landed on the surface, collected its sample, shot the sample in a sealed container towards Earth, and returned to its orbit around Ryugu. Four months ago, Hayabusa 2 released the German-French made Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout (MASCOT) onto Ryugu. MASCOT tumbled to the surface under low gravity and uses an internal system of shifting weight to throw itself about the surface of the asteroid. As you read this, MASCOT is using a series of cameras and infrared microscopes to study Ryugu’s surface in more detail than ever before.
The project hasn’t been without setbacks, though. When the craft arrived to the asteroid in June of 2018, JAXA immediately realized that the surface was uniformly covered with large boulders, making it very difficult to land. In a press conference at the American Astronomical Society, Makoto Yoshikawa stated “We got there, got to our home position, and took our close up images of the target asteroid to realize that the surface is not friendly to the mission.” The problem got worse when the smallest of the landers, the MINERVA-III, was able to show that the surface was completely rocky. Eventually, however, a joint effort between JAXA, NASA, DLR and the French Space Agency were able to find and select sites for Hayabusa, MASCOT and other landers to touch down at. Additionally, when MASCOT landed, it did so upside down, requiring some difficult maneuvering of its internal motors to flip the machine over.
Currently, Hayabusa 2 is still in orbit around Ryugu, and MASCOT is still sending its data back to Earth. The mission is far from over. Later this month, Hayabusa 2 will be landing on the surface of Ryugu for the second time of three. With its perilous landing conditions, scientists are biting their nails in preparation for the daring maneuver. If successful, however, Hayabusa 2 has the potential to fundamentally change the way we think about life, and how life got to our planet. It’s daring, it’s difficult, and it has been called crazy. Nobody has ever tried to make multiple sampling trips to an asteroid before. There are high hopes that when Hayabusa 2 returns its samples to Earth in 2020, we may be able to unravel our biological history.