Posted on 09/22/2018 7:10:44 AM PDT by BenLurkin
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.
In order to complete the deployment, the main spacecraft of the Hayabusa2 mission lowered itself carefully down toward the surface until it was just 120 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 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
I didn’t even know that was in the works. Congratulations to the Land of the Rising Sun!
I will be following it now, however.
Thank you for the post.
Awesome achievement, we hope later news comes on the mission’s findings. Space, the final frontier.
That’s quite a feat and the pictures are amazing. Thanks for posting.
and now the bad news... the japanese rovers have shifted the asteroid’s orbit and impact with the earth is imminent.
21°25'21.02"N 39°49'34.58"E
lol
.......and awaken a badly animated slumbering reptilian monster which will now devastate earth despite heavy resistance by toy tanks and tiny airplanes hanging from wires.
p
LOL!!
If you’re wondering why they hop instead of roll, it’s because the gravity there is 1/80,000 of Earth... Not much traction!
55 meters is around 180 feet, not 120 feet.
Kinda neat that they manage to land on a 3,000 rock that is 180 million miles away.
they better hop carefully or they might tip it over
“Hayabusa2,” not to be confused with Suzuki’s Hayabusa motortcycle, one of the fasted stock bikes in the world.
Unless they are sending superbikes into space!
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