Japan About to Land Rovers on Asteroid
Space First for Japan and the World Japan's Hayabusa-2 Spacecraft Japan Making Space & Innovation History with the Asteroid Ryugu If touchdown goes as planned, Japan will be the first to land rovers, two of them, on an asteroid. Japan's Hayabusa-2 spacecraft started on the mission in 2014 and has recently arrived on the 3000 foot wide Ryugu asteroid. Mission Possible for Japan 2 of the 4 onboard rovers will be deployed on Friday 9/21/2018. They're 7 inch wide devices that will hop around the space rock to take photos and temperature readings. They hop rather than roll because of the asteroid's low gravity readings. Next Stops - Incredible Research Opportunities About the Earth 2 larger landers will be released to collect data and rock samples over the next year. The spacecraft will depart in 12/2019 and bring back the samples and data to researchers. The Japanese research mission is looking for evidence of water and organic materials s...