Japanese space probe “Hayabusa-2” successfully landed on the surface of a 900-foot asteroid Ryugu third spacecraft – lander MASCOT (Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout). The device has already begun to work, according to the official press release on the website of the German centre for aviation and Astronautics (DLR), is the developer of the module. The first phase of scientific observations and data collection will continue for the next 16 hours, according to the DLR website.
The preparations for the landing of the unit started a day earlier, when the Japanese space Agency JAXA brought probe “Hayabusa-2” at a distance of 51 feet from the surface of the asteroid. Early in the morning, 3 October 2018, 3:58 Central European summer time-the lander successfully separated from the Japanese spacecraft “Hayabusa-2” and entered the phase of free fall, the speed of which, according to the source, was lower than that of the previous landing of the two Rovers cylindrical MINERVA-MINERVA and II1A-II1B. After some time, the control center of the mission WE have received confirmation of successful undocking of the apparatus, and then his landing.
Module MASCOT
“Everything was perfect. Telemetry from the lander showed that the device successfully separated from the parent probe, and then, after about 20 minutes, made contact with the surface of the asteroid,” — says Tra-Mi Ho, curator of the project MASCOT.
The team is very worried about the successful landing of the machine. If the MASCOT could not be separated from the probe “Hayabusa-2” as planned, to solve this problem it would be almost impossible to explain the German experts. Fortunately, everything went well. It is reported that the module is already turned on his side MASCAM camera and made 20 photographs the surface of the asteroid Ryugu and their environment. At the moment, the data obtained on Board a Japanese probe.
Illustration of a landing module MASCOT on the surface of Ryugu
“The camera worked great. We obtained the first images”, explains Ralph Jaumann, a planetary scientist from DLR.
Module team also received confirmation of the first data collection by the magnetometer MASMAG installed on the machine. The performance of the instrument checked immediately before the separation of the module from the Japanese probe.
“Data show that around the asteroid is relatively weak field of the solar wind and observed a fairly strong magnetic disturbances caused by the space probe. At the moment of separation, we expected a higher level of interference fields, and we have actually noted these disturbances,” commented Karl-Heinz Glassmeier from Braunschweig technical University.
On Board of the MASCOT are four tools: the camera and the radiometer, developed by DLR and the infrared spectrometer developed by the Institute of astrophysics and the magnetometer at Braunschweig technical University.
Once WE have completed all planned measurements at the point of landing, he moves to another location the surface of the Ryugu using the jumps, the website of the German Agency. The move will help him swivel bracket.
Recall that the purpose of the mission “Hayabusa-2” is the study of the asteroid Ryugu. For a space body located at the moment 300 million miles from Earth the Japanese space probe arrived this summer. Having a stable orbit, the device in September dropped two jumping Rovers. The Rover has already transmitted to Earth the first scientific data, and also shared the first photos of the surface of the Ryuga. It is also planned landing of the lander MASCOT. In the future, the Japanese Agency JAXA plans to land on the surface of the Ryugu another Rover. In addition, with the help of the parent probe “Hayabusa-2” is scheduled to shoot into the surface of an asteroid bursting shell and to collect the rising particle of its soil. The collected samples are scheduled to be delivered back to Earth in 2020.
Data from MASCOT, as well as analysis of soil samples will not only help scientists learn more about asteroids, but also be able to tell more about how it formed our Solar system.
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On the surface of the asteroid Ryugu successfully landed the third apparatus
Nikolai Khizhnyak