The MINERVA-II rovers are about to land on asteroid Ryugu JAXA
Spacecraft incoming! Japan’s Hayabusa 2 spacecraft is getting ready to release its first rovers on to the asteroid Ryugu. This kicks off a year-long campaign of dropping landers and taking samples before Hayabusa 2 heads back to Earth at the end of 2019.
The first two of four total landers will be dispatched together on 21 September, when they will be dropped from about 60 metres above the asteroid’s surface. The landers, collectively known as MINERVA-II, are “hoppers” rather than rovers – a spinning cylinder inside each lander…
