Pieces of other worlds
AFTER A SIX-YEAR JOURNEY of 5.24 billion kilometres, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) Hayabusa 2 mission returned to Earth on December 6, releasing its sample-return capsule during Earth flyby. Aboard was the precious ‘treasure chest’ containing samples of asteroid 162173 Ryugu.
“We started to develop Hayabusa 2 in 2011, and since then, the dream has come true,” says Hitoshi Kuninaka (ISAS/JAXA) during a (translated) press conference. “We performed the mission 100%… and the operations team did a very good job.”
The sample release began when the capsule separated from the spacecraft. Spinning once every three seconds, the capsule hit
