Japanese space agency sets date to explore surface of asteroid

The Japanese space agency will explore the surface of an asteroid with robots as early as next month.

The Hayabusa-2 spacecraft reached the asteroid Ryugu in June after a three-and-a-half-year journey to the space rock.

Robotic landing craft from the spacecraft’s “mothership” will be deployed on specific days in September and October and will be despatched to separate locations on the asteroid.

According to the BBC, they will be the first landing craft to gather data from the surface of an asteroid.

The Ryugu asteroid is only 1km wider and belongs to a primitive type of asteroid – meaning it comes from the early days of the Solar System.

It is hoped that by studying the space rock, scientists will be able to better understand the origin and evolution of planet Earth.

Hayabusa-2 was launched from the Tanegashima Launch Center in far southern Japan on December 3, 2014

On September 21, a 3.3kg container known as Minerva II-1 which is mounted on the spacecraft will deploy two robots called Rover 1A and Rover 1B.

These rovers will move across the asteroid by hopping under its low gravity.

On October 3, the mothership will then deploy a lander called Mascot – developed by the German Aerospace in conjunction with the French Space Agency – which is a 10kg instrument package that will gather a range of scientific data from the asteroid’s surface.

Mascot carries a wide-angle camera, a microscope to study the composition of minerals, a radiometer to measure temperature and a magnetometer to measure the magnetic field.

Once it reaches the surface of the asteroid, Mascot can only move its position once – by jumping.

A second lander – Minerva II-2 – will be deployed at a later date.

The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency also plans to detonate an explosive which will blast a crater into the surface of the asteroid with the ship able to then descend into the hole to collect fresh rocks.

The spacecraft is expected to return to Earth with the asteroid samples for study by 2020.