We have heard more about Rosetta mission and how epic it was. We landed a space probe on a comet, and that’s some achievement not only for ESA but also for whole humanity. Now another mission by JAXA (Japanese space agency) was sent yesterday (Dec 3, 2014) to pursue C-Type asteroid named “1999 JU3”. Hayabusa2 is as name suggests a second mission for exploring asteroids.
Hayabusa mission was launched in 2003 to collect samples from s-type asteroid “Itokawa” and it returned to Earth in 2010, successfully completing the mission with asteroid samples. The reason behind Hayabusa’s mission was to study about the birth of our solar system. You might ask why asteroid, why we are searching for answers for our solar system in asteroids.
Hayabusa
Only extra-terrestrial samples we have gathered so far is from our moon, but like our Earth, moon too went terrestrial transformation over the billions of years due to the thermal processes, therefore these samples from moon or anything from our Earth cannot provide more accurate data about the birth of our solar system. Asteroids were produced at the birth of the solar system and since they are so small, they went little or no transformation over these billions of years. Therefore studying the samples from asteroid will give more accurate details about our solar system.
In a technological perspective, Hayabusa mission has another feat. It used ion engine as the main propeller. Ion engines are high-efficient engines still in technological making and will become important key player in future space exploration.
Hayabusa also used autonomous navigation system, one that allow the space craft to navigate to the target without human intervention. It uses optical navigation camera for light detection and ranging.
Hayabusa2 is going after c-type asteroid, they are considered to be more ancient than s-type and is considered to contain more organic materials than that of s-type. Studying c-type asteroid will yield more details about origin of organic materials and water in our solar system. Hayabusa2 uses identical configuration of Hayabusa, but some parts are improvised, such as flat-disk high gain antenna.
Hayabusa2 will reach asteroid 1999 JU3 in mid-2018 and orbit it for one and a half years to collect samples and then return to Earth around the end of 2020. After it return with collected samples, we will have more knowledge about what and how organic materials and water came to solar system and also some questions about life formation also more likely to be answered.
