津田 雄一

Hayabusa2 was a mission with a series of challenging operations and a scientific goal that related to the origins of life. These attributes presented an opportunity to engage with a wide range of people beyond the scientific community who might be inspired by the difficulty of the engineering or relate to a search for how life on Earth began. The mission's outreach program aimed to share news throughout the mission in Japan and overseas, with regular updates on mission operations, real-time events for an immersive feel during major operations and campaigns to allow people to connect with the team.

Hayabusa2 is the second Japanese small body sample return exploration mission, targeting the carbonaceous asteroid (162173) Ryugu. The spacecraft was launched with Japan's H2A launch vehicle from the Tanegashima Space Center in December 2014 and arrived at Ryugu in June 2018. After completing detailed remote sensing observations, two sampling operations, one kinetic impact experiment, and multiple deployments of robotic smaller probes, the spacecraft left the asteroid in November 2019. It was a six-year journey that the spacecraft traveled approximately 5.2 billion km. In December 2020, the spacecraft returned to the Earth with extraterrestrial materials. A special volume is developed as a primary reference to collect engineering efforts from mission planning through in-orbit operations that made Hayabusa2’s achievements. This chapter introduces a brief overview of this book.

2021年6月のリュウグウ粒子の配分後、約１年にわたり８つの研究チーム(初期分析６チームとPhase2キュレーション２チーム)により系統的な分析が行われた。岩石・鉱物組織からみると、リュウグウは主として含水鉱物と有機物から構成され、微細な組織として複雑に共存することがわかった。また主要元素濃度、高精度酸素同位体などのバルク的分析の結果は、リュウグウ粒子は、太陽系の元素組成を代表する始原的なCIコンドライトと良い一致を示した。我々は、独自に開発した大気非曝露ナノ領域試料加工・分析システムを用い、有機物と含水鉱物の入り交ざった試料から物質科学的情報を得た。その結果、(１)含水鉱物集合体に特異的に濃集した脂肪属炭化水素に富む有機物の存在(２)太陽系で最も始原的な化学組成を持つ物質である証拠、そして(３)太陽系外縁部での形成が明らかになった。

MASCOT (‘Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout’) is a 10 kg mobile surface science package part of JAXA’s Hayabusa2 sample return mission. The mission was launched in December 2014 from Tanegashima Space Center, Japan. The Hayabusa2 spacecraft reached the target asteroid in summer 2018. After a mapping phase of the asteroid and a landing site selection process the MASCOT lander was deployed to the surface on the 3rd of October 2018. MASCOT operated successfully for about 17 h on the surface of Ryugu. It performed three relocation manoeuvres and one “Mini-Move” and returned 128 MBytes of data. MASCOT has been developed by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in cooperation with the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES). The main objectives were to perform in-situ investigations of the asteroid surface and to support the sampling site selection for the mother spacecraft. These objectives could be reached successfully. On 6th December 2020 Hayabusa2 successfully returned asteroid samples to the Earth.

Ryugu is a carbonaceous rubble-pile asteroid visited by the Hayabusa2 spacecraft. Small rubble pile asteroids record the thermal evolution of their much larger parent bodies. However, recent space weathering and/or solar heating create ambiguities between the uppermost layer observable by remote-sensing and the pristine material from the parent body. Hayabusa2 remote-sensing observations find that on the asteroid (162173) Ryugu both north and south pole regions preserve the material least processed by space weathering, which is spectrally blue carbonaceous chondritic material with a 0-3% deep 0.7-µm band absorption, indicative of Fe-bearing phyllosilicates. Here we report that spectrally blue Ryugu's parent body experienced intensive aqueous alteration and subsequent thermal metamorphism at 570-670 K (300-400 °C), suggesting that Ryugu's parent body was heated by radioactive decay of short-lived radionuclides possibly because of its early formation 2-2.5 Ma. The samples being brought to Earth by Hayabusa2 will give us our first insights into this epoch in solar system history.

Deployable payloads have been used to expand mission opportunities and enable autonomous navigation and guidance under uncertain terrain conditions. A spacecraft may deploy an artificial marker toward the surface of the target body. An estimation of the deployment trajectory of markers can provide important information for guidance and navigation. We propose a method estimating the deployment trajectory using only images and evaluate its accuracy and reliability. In addition, to determine the spacecraft's relative attitude with respect to the asteroid surface, we introduce an attitude estimation method using the spacecraft's own shadow. The results shown in this paper confirm that the estimated trajectory is sufficiently accurate and thus the proposed method is a viable option for future missions for determining the trajectory of deployable payloads using only images of a deployment.

The resurfacing process on Ryugu accompanying the artificial impact crater formation by Hayabusa2's Small Carry-on Impactor (SCI) was studied by comparing pre- and post-impact images of this region captured by an optical navigation camera. Three different aspects of the resurfacing process were examined: the crater rim profiles, the motion of boulders and the appearance of new boulders, and the motion vectors of Ryugu's surface around the SCI crater. The averaged crater rim height, h, was derived as follows: h = hr exp [−(r/Rrim − 1)/λrim], where Rrim is the SCI crater rim radius of 8.8 m, the fitted parameter, hr, is 0.475 m, and the λrim is 0.245. The ejecta blanket thickness of the SCI crater was thinner than that estimated from both the observation of natural craters and the crater formation theory. However, this discrepancy of the ejecta blanket thickness was resolved by taking into account the new boulders appearing in the post-impact images in the volume. The motion of the discovered boulders could be classified by its mechanisms as follows: a dragging motion created by excavation flow during the crater formation, a pushing motion created by falling-back ejecta, a dragging motion created by the slight motion of the Okamoto boulder, and a motion caused by seismic shaking induced by the SCI impact itself. The seismic shaking caused boulders to move farther than 3 cm from the original site in most of the region within 15 m distance from the SCI crater center, where the maximum acceleration of the impact induced seismic waves 7 times larger than the surface gravity of Ryugu based on the laboratory experiments (Matsue et al. [2020] Icarus, 338, 113520), and the evidence of the seismic shaking for boulders with a movement of >3 cm was detected in about 10% of the boulders in the region between 15 m and 30 m from the crater center, which region was inferred to experience acceleration larger than the Ryugu's surface gravity based on previous laboratory experiments (Matsue et al. [2020] Icarus, 338, 113520).

Planetesimals—the initial stage of the planetary formation process—are considered to be initially very porous aggregates of dusts1,2, and subsequent thermal and compaction processes reduce their porosity3. The Hayabusa2 spacecraft found that boulders on the surface of asteroid (162173) Ryugu have an average porosity of 30–50% (refs. 4–6), higher than meteorites but lower than cometary nuclei7, which are considered to be remnants of the original planetesimals8. Here, using high-resolution thermal and optical imaging of Ryugu’s surface, we discovered, on the floor of fresh small craters (<20 m in diameter), boulders with reflectance (~0.015) lower than the Ryugu average6 and porosity >70%, which is as high as in cometary bodies. The artificial crater formed by Hayabusa2’s impact experiment9 is similar to these craters in size but does not have such high-porosity boulders. Thus, we argue that the observed high porosity is intrinsic and not created by subsequent impact comminution and/or cracking. We propose that these boulders are the least processed material on Ryugu and represent remnants of porous planetesimals that did not undergo a high degree of heating and compaction3. Our multi-instrumental analysis suggests that fragments of the highly porous boulders are mixed within the surface regolith globally, implying that they might be captured within collected samples by touch-down operations10,11.

<title>Abstract</title> C-type asteroids are considered to be primitive small Solar-System bodies enriched in water and organics, providing clues for understanding the origin and evolution of the Solar System and the building blocks of life. C-type asteroid 162173 Ryugu has been characterized by remote sensing and on-asteroid measurements with Hayabusa2, but further studies are expected by direct analyses of returned samples. Here we describe the bulk sample mainly consisting of rugged and smooth particles of millimeter to submillimeter size, preserving physical and chemical properties as they were on the asteroid. The particle size distribution is found steeper than that of surface boulders11. Estimated grain densities of the samples have a peak around 1350 kg m-3, which is lower than that of meteorites suggests a high micro-porosity down to millimeter-scale, as estimated at centimeter-scale by thermal measurements. The extremely dark optical to near-infrared reflectance and the spectral profile with weak absorptions at 2.7 and 3.4 microns implying carbonaceous composition with indigenous aqueous alteration, respectively, match the global average of Ryugu, confirming the sample’s representativeness. Together with the absence of chondrule and Ca-Al-rich inclusion of larger than sub-mm, these features indicate Ryugu is most similar to CI chondrites but with darker, more porous and fragile characteristics.

The article “Orbit insertion strategy of Hayabusa2’s rover with large release uncertainty around the asteroid Ryugu” written by Yusuke Oki, Kent Yoshikawa, Hiroshi Takeuchi et al., was originally published electronically on the publisher’s internet portal (currently SpringerLink) on 05 November 2020 without open access. After publication in Volume 4, Issue 4, page 309–329, the author(s) decided to opt for Open Choice and to make the article an open access publication. Therefore, the copyright of the article has been changed to © The Author(s) 2020 and the article is forthwith distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, duplication, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

© 2020 The Authors Hayabusa2 deployed two artificial landmarks called “target markers (TMs)” on the asteroid Ryugu for autonomous landing control. To achieve precise deployment on target landing sites, the TMs were designed to dissipate kinetic energy and released near the asteroid surface (with an altitude of less than 40 m). This study evaluates the performance of the ballistic deployment in the actual microgravity environment by reconstructing the trajectories of the TMs from optical, altimetric, and radiometric data. In addition, based on the reconstructed trajectories, low-velocity impacts of the TMs on the surface of Ryugu are characterized with dynamical parameters, such as dissipated energy and a coefficient of restitution. The physical implications of the impact analysis are discussed in comparison with on-ground experimental data. Furthermore, the gravitational environment is investigated using the reconstructed trajectory data and a shape model of Ryugu, providing information on the local gravity anomaly. Consequently, this paper demonstrates the usefulness of deployable artificial landmarks for small-body landings and further offers insight on surface conditions and internal structures near the Hayabusa2 landing sites where samples of Ryugu were collected.

© 2020. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved. Seismic shaking has been regarded as an essential source of resurfacing on asteroids. The Small Carry-on Impactor (SCI) operation on Hayabusa2 has been expected to be a unique opportunity for testing in situ seismic shaking whose energy is sufficiently large to excite observable surface modification. However, no obvious regolith hopping was identified even immediately outside of the crater formed by the SCI impact. To understand this discrepancy from the expectation, we simulate seismic wave propagation on Ryugu with a wide range of surface material properties and evaluate maximum acceleration on the surface. Numerical results reveal that low-quality factor or low seismic efficiency is required to explain the lack of geomorphological change after the SCI experiment. Considering that scattering under anhydrous conditions cannot efficiently dissipate energy, such a low-quality factor is not plausible. The weak yield strength in porous materials can efficiently decrease seismic wave energies, making the apparent seismic efficiency extremely low. Based on this hypothesis, we propose a formulation of surface mobility on asteroids that considers the physical properties of regolith. We consistently estimate the occurrence of seismic shaking with the existence of unstable boulders on Ryugu.

© 1963-2012 IEEE. An improved weather-forecast-based link-budget design technique for space-to-Earth links is described. The aim is the stochastic optimization of both transmission symbol rate and received signal-to-noise ratio. The proposed radiometeorological operations prediction (RadioMetOP) model takes into account the forecast uncertainty by a space-time ensemble method exploiting the temporal evolution of the predicted radiometeorological variables over the weather-forecast spatial grid. The unique possibility of testing and validating the RadioMetOP model is presented, thanks to the Ka -band downlink measurements available from the support of the European Space Agency's antenna tracking network to deep-space Hayabusa-2 (HB2) mission, operated by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. First, the RadioMetOP model accuracy is tested by comparing the signal-to-noise ratio, measured during the transmission periods, with the simulated one, properly scaled to the symbol rate operated by HB2, finding correlation values of 0.9 that confirm the effectiveness of the proposed approach. Second, the a posteriori analysis of the optimization process is accomplished, showing that depending on the considered criteria for the link-budget optimization, the use of the RadioMetOP model would have allowed a transmitted data volume more than doubled and an average signal-to-noise ratio gain between 2.1 and 3.8 dB.

© 2020 Elsevier Inc. Asteroid 162,173 Ryugu is a rubble-pile asteroid, whose top-shape is compatible with models of deformation by spin up. Rims of major craters on Ryugu have an east–west asymmetric profile; their western crater rims are sharp and tall, while their eastern crater rims are rounded and low. Although there are various possible explanations, we theoretically assess the effect of asteroid rotation as the possible reason for this east–west asymmetry. It is known that the trajectories and fates of ejecta are affected by the rotation. The Coriolis force and the inertial speed of the rotating surface are the factors altering the ejecta trajectories. Consequently, we found that the east–west asymmetric crater rims might be formed as a result of rotation, when the inertial speed of the rotating surface is nearly equal to the first cosmic velocity of the body. In other words, it is possible that the observed east–west asymmetric rims of the Urashima, Cendrillon, and Kolobok craters were formed when Ryugu's rotation period was ~3.6 h.

Hayabusa2 is an asteroid sample return mission developed and operated by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). Hayabusa2 visited the C-Type asteroid Ryugu in 2018, stayed in the proximity of the asteroid for 1.5 years, and returned to Earth in 2020. Hayabusa2 succeeded in delivering three surface exploration robots to the asteroid surface, performing two landing and sample collection activities, generating one artificial crater impact, and deploying three small objects into orbit around the asteroid. The terrain of Ryugu was found to be unexpectedly harsh through the in-situ observations, and the operation strategy was obliged to be changed and aligned to the Ryugu environment. The project team overcame all the difficulties through tight and collaborative works between the team s scientists and engineers, and completed the planned missions perfectly. The total of 5.4 g of Ryugu sample was confirmed to contain in the returned capsule, which is now being analysed by specifically organized initial analysis teams, and will be delivered to international researchers through AO in 2022. This paper describes the entire flight result of the Hayabusa2 mission, and summarizes the engineering and scientific accomplishments of the mission.

Hayabusa2 is the second asteroid sample return mission in the world following Hayabusa. The target asteroid was (162173) Ryugu, a C-Type near-Earth asteroid. The principal science purpose of the mission is to study the organic matter and water in the early stages of the Solar System, with the aim to understand the origin of the Earth s water and that of the substances that began life, as well as the origin and evolution of Solar System bodies. The mission successfully returned samples from Ryugu and collected a large amount of data on the asteroid through the onboard instruments, rovers, and lander. The mission completed several challenges such as two touchdowns, an impact experiment, and artificial satellite experiments. All of these challenges were important from the scientific point of view. The results revealed a range of the physical properties of Ryugu. With the samples of Ryugu now back on Earth, the sample analysis is currently underway to understand the materials from the early era of our Solar System. In addition to the scientific research, the mission also focused on outreach. We carried out a number of special campaigns, such as observations of the asteroid and spacecraft from Earth and an art contest, many talk events, web and twitter releases among other activities. We tried to inform people about our mission in real time and also tried to publish information both in Japanese and English simultaneously. Through these activities, we think we were able to make people feel connected with the Hayabusa2 mission and we hope that many more people have become interested in space activities. In this paper, we summarize the results of science and outreach for the Hayabusa2 mission.

JAXA’s asteroid explorer Hayabusa2 completed its operation near the asteroid 162173 Ryugu, which started in June 2018, and carried out a maneuver away from the asteroid on November 13, 2019. In the outbound operation, the total delta-v performed by its ion propulsion was about 1,015 m/s, the space powered flight time reached 6,515 hours, 24 kg of propellant xenon was consumed, and 42 kg remained. On the return trip, 2,400 hours of operation was carried out in two parts, from December 2019 to February 2020 and from May to August 2020. Trajectory correction maneuver TCM-0 was carried out with one ion thruster from September 15 to 17, 2020, which was the last operation of the ion engine system, followed by several TCMs by chemical propulsion. The capsule returned to Earth on December 6, 2020. The total delta-v in the round trip was about 1.3 km/s, and the powered flight time was 9,398 hours. After consuming 31 kg of propellant xenon, 35 kg remained, a series of close flyby with an L-type asteroid 2001 CC21 in 2026 and rendezvous with a fast rotator asteroid 1998 KY26 in 2031 has been proposed as an extended mission of Hayabusa2 and its ion engine were restarted on January 5, 2021. The cumulative operating times for the four ion thrusters are 6,996, 2,880, 9,220, and 8,941 hours, respectively. 12,632-hour powered flight by the ion engine system produced about 1.7 km/s delta-v. An engineering model of Hayabusa2 neutralizer has been subjected to ground durability tests since the summer of 2012 prior to launch. 75,277 hours have passed by the end of September 2021, and it is still operating without failure and testing is ongoing.

Hayabusa2 came back to Earth and the sample return capsule landed in Woomera Prohibited Area (WPA), Australia as planned on December 6, 2020. In the recovery operation all the function of the capsule system and finding system worked fine. The recovery operation teams found and recovered the capsule smoothly. After gas collection from the sample container, the capsule was quickly transported to Extraterrestrial Sample Curation Center in Sagamihara, Japan. The sample container was carefully opened, and 5.4g of C-type asteroid material was first confirmed in the world. Before these operations, the recovery operation team discussed with the government about the transport procedure and the environment impact even in the off-nominal cases with supported by Australian Space Agency (ASA). With reflecting the discussion, the recovery operation plan was applied to Australian government with safety plan and emergency plan in August 2019. However, the COVID-19 pandemic was increased in early 2020. It made the situation difficult. The entry to Australia was restricted and the regular international flight was almost suspended. After many discussions, the counter measure plan was added on the operation plan and we finally obtained Authorisation of Return of Overseas-Launched Space Object (AROLSO) in August 2020.

The Hayabusa2 is an asteroid sample return mission. It returned to Earth on 5 Dec. 2020 and released the sample return capsule containing a confirmed 5.4 g sample. The AOCS (Attitude and Orbit Control System) then changed its trajectory and attitude for the capsule re-entry. This operation continued for about 24 hours and included six sequential attitude maneuvers. There was only one chance for this procedure to succeed, and it could not be aborted. The accurate estimation of this subsystem's operation was one of the most critical factors in the mission's success. The main difficulties were to realize several attitude maneuvers under control that had to be exceptionally strict because of the significant attitude disturbances Hayabusa2 was subjected to the sizable magnetic moment due to the Ion Engine System (IES) and the Earth's magnetic field, and the aerodynamic torque around the perigee point. The authors devised a precise timing control mode for switching and selection of RW unloading. This paper describes AOCS operation, the simulation model, and the results of an analysis of the re-entry operation. AOCS planning is described in detail, as are a comparison of actual operation results and planning.

Hayabusa2, a Japanese asteroid sample return probe, was launched on December 3, 2014, and arrived at Ryugu, a C-Type asteroid, on June 27, 2018. It left Ryugu on November 13, 2019, after completing its 1.5-year asteroid proximity phase operation, including sample collections and a kinetic impact experiment. The propulsive return cruise with the ion thrusters began on December 3, 2019, and in October 2020, the spacecraft entered the precise guidance phase, in which the trajectory corrections with the chemical thrusters were conducted. After several trajectory correction maneuvers, the spacecraft was precisely guided to the landing point of the sample return capsule, and its reentry capsule entered Earth s atmosphere and successfully landed on December 5, 2020. The capsule recovery team immediately found and retrieved the capsule. This paper describes the results of Hayabusa2 Earth return and capsule reentry, including the cruising and precise guidance phase and capsule release operation.

This study experimentally investigated the cause and the scattering mechanism of the phenomenon in which a celestial surface object scattered by a thruster injection has a spacecraft direction component. The phenomenon was first observed by Hayabusa2 touchdown. One of the mechanisms by which objects on the surface of the asteroid are scattered toward the spacecraft is the making crater by the thruster injection. We investigated the trends in the direction and amount of scattering of surface objects by injecting thrusters into a sandbox created in a vacuum chamber.