Hayabusa 2 had landed. And is hopping.

September 22, 2018 11:44 AM

The story of an asteroid, one space probe, and two robot rovers. About 200 million miles from Earth the JAXA space probe Hayabusa2 (Japanese language site; English language site; Wikipedia) has landed two tiny rovers on top of a very small asteroid, 162173 Ryugu. The rovers (named 1A and 1B) are now hopping on Ryugu's surface, taking photos, and sending them back to Earth via Hayabusa2 in orbit.

A SpaceTechAsia mission profile.
A program profile from Spaceflight101.
One 3d representation.
Images hosted by the Planetary Society.
Orbital visualization from Lizard-tail Studios.
The very cool Haya2NOW dashboard (explained).

Previously: one stereo image, one good question.

posted by doctornemo (13 comments total)

This is how I know we're not in the absolute-worst timeline, because in this timeline we just put rovers on a freakin' asteroid and that is amazing.
posted by curious nu at 11:51 AM on September 22, 2018 [7 favorites]

I can't get over how much it looks like a huge, perfect octahedron is under that muffling surface layer.

Which is, of course, a native crystal habit of diamond.
posted by jamjam at 12:05 PM on September 22, 2018 [1 favorite]

Yay for cool SPACE STUFF!!!
posted by Windopaene at 12:06 PM on September 22, 2018 [1 favorite]

I read the headline and was wondering what the top speed was, and whether Suzuki was using turbo or supercharging...

... and then I read the rest of it, and realized that it wasn't about motorcycles. :(

(Kidding aside, it's still cool!)
posted by -1 at 12:41 PM on September 22, 2018 [2 favorites]

Previously: one stereo image

Now I feel vindicated in using beat-up old six- and eight-sided dice for asteroids in space games.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 12:44 PM on September 22, 2018 [1 favorite]

This made me happy weepy.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 1:00 PM on September 22, 2018 [1 favorite]

Movie of Ryugu rotating as Hayabusa 2 approached (from someone on twitter who put together the nav cam images, I forget who). The probe's shadow is visible in the last frames.
posted by joeyh at 2:46 PM on September 22, 2018

Also the rest of this mission is just insane, it's going to blow up part of the asteroid with 10 pounds of plastic explosive and fly into the crater to return a sample to Earth using ion engines!
posted by joeyh at 2:56 PM on September 22, 2018 [6 favorites]

So exciting, please please have ice. Once we have a source of water making fuel off planet opens the solar system. Mars in weeks with enough reaction mass (fuel).
posted by sammyo at 3:24 PM on September 22, 2018

Whenever I see anything about this asteroid all I can think of is the guitar solo from Bohemian Rhapsody because Dr Brian May is on the asteroid research team.
posted by furtive at 3:26 PM on September 22, 2018 [2 favorites]

Does JAXA offer small models of these rovers? Because I would love little hopping cylinders on my desk.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 3:47 PM on September 22, 2018 [1 favorite]

はやぶさ２ (hayabusa2)
プラスチックモデル (plastic model)
プラモデル (pura moderu)

You can find models on Amazon.jp... not sure if they have the little rover bits... There are a lot of Hayabusa1 as well, the search is all mix and match... You should be able to find a kit, but I doubt it bounces across your desk.
posted by zengargoyle at 4:46 PM on September 22, 2018 [1 favorite]

A Third Probe Has Landed on Asteroid Ryugu—but It Has Just 16 Hours to Live
posted by homunculus at 4:55 PM on October 3, 2018