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Japan Launching Ambitious Asteroid-Sampling Mission in 2014
by Leonard David, SPACE.com’s Space Insider ColumnistDate: 28 December 2012 Time: 02:18 PM ET
Coutesy of SPACE.com
Artist's concept of Japan’s proposed Hayabusa 2 spacecraft, which would reconnoiter asteroid 1999 JU3 in mid-2018. Hayabusa 2 would hurl an impactor into the asteroid, sample the resulting crater and send pieces back to Earth for study. CREDIT: JAXA/Akihiro Ikeshita
Japan's space agency is readying a new asteroid probe for launch, an ambitious mission that aims to build on the victory of the country's first round-trip asteroid mission that sent the Hayabusa spacecraft to retrieve samples of the space rock Itokowa.
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The new Japanese asteroid mission, called Hayabusa2, is scheduled for launch in 2014 and aimed at the asteroid 1999 JU3, a large space rock about 3,018 feet (920 meters) in length. It is due to arrive at the asteroid in mid-2018, loiter at the space rock and carry out a slew of challenging firsts before departing the scene at the end of 2019.
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If all goes well, the Hayabusa2 spacecraft will return to Earth with samples of asteroid 1999 JU3 at the end of 2020. The probe's name is Japanese for "Falcon2."
