A capsule containing pristine asteroid samples will blaze a trail down to Earth on Saturday morning US time.
JAXA
The Japanese Space Agency JAXA is gearing up for the return of samples collected from asteroid Ryugu by the intrepid, expertly engineered Hayabusa2 probe. The spacecraft’s sample collection capsule is set to land near Woomera in the Australian outback early Sunday morning local time. If you want to find out how to watch the sample return mission live, we’ve got you covered here.
What’s all the fuss about? Well, Hayabusa2 launched in 2014 and rendezvoused with asteroid Ryugu in June, 2018. After shooting the asteroid with a bullet in 2019, the spacecraft was able to grab samples of subsurface material from the space rock — potentially the first time a spacecraft has done so — and store it in the capsule that will be returning to Earth over the weekend.
Until JAXA scientists and engineers get back to Japan, we won’t know for certain just what’s been captured, but it seems incredibly likely we will be able to pry inside an asteroid for the first time. The material trapped inside could tell us about the early solar system and explain how water was carried to the planet in its formative years.
JAXA will provide a livestream from Mission Control. However, whether there will be vision from the location of the fireball as the spacecraft returns to Earth is currently uncertain.
“Given the nature of our operations with the minimum number of team members in Woomera, we cannot promise anything, but if any, it will be embedded in the livestream from Sagamihara, Japan,” said Masaki Fujimoto, deputy director of the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science at JAXA.
That livestream is available for viewing below. There are currently upwards of 80 scientists and engineers from JAXA stationed in Woomera and nearby outback town Coober Pedy ready to leap into action as Hayabusa2 Ubers its asteroid sample to Earth.
