Japanese robots first landed on asteroids

Two adventurous robots landed on Ryugu's surface, asteroids about 900 meters in diameter, and sent some new images.

Ryugu surface (left) and sunlight (right) taken by Rover 1A on September 22.Photo: JAXA.

The Hayabusa 2 spacecraft of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) brought two jumping robots, Rover 1A and Rover 1B, to land on the Ryugu asteroid on June 21, Space reported. This is the first time an explorer robot has landed on an asteroid surface. The engineers at JAXA confirmed the mission successfully and both robots were safe on June 22.

The robots will move on Ryugu's surface, take pictures and collect data. Some of the first images sent were blurry because they were taken while moving. To perform the task, the Hayabusa 2 spacecraft must descend 55 meters from Ryugu's surface. After the two robots are successfully dropped, it flies to a normal height of 20 km.

Hayabusa 2 ships approaching the Ryugu asteroid in late June.

According to the plan, Hayabusa 2 will drop down on the asteroid of a larger exploration robot named MASCOT in October and the robot will jump in size next year. This spacecraft was launched into space in December 2014 with the task of collecting soil samples from Ryugu to bring back to Earth for analysis. The ship approached the asteroid in June, after more than 3 billion kilometers of space travel.