Hayabusa 2, Japan's second mission to collect samples from an asteroid, is getting a MASCOT.
The German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Cologne and the Japan Aerospace and Exploration Agency (JAXA) in Tokyo announced this week that they have formalised a deal to send the German-built Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout, or MASCOT, on the mission, set to launch in 2014.
JAXA's original Hayabusa probe was a success ? but only just. Technical challenges ranging from failed engines to lost communications meant that the spacecraft returned home hobbled and late, bearing just a few precious pieces of the stony asteroid Itokawa.
Hayabusa was meant to do so much more. A small jumping rover called MINERVA was supposed to collect data on the asteroid's temperature and surface variability, but it was released at the wrong time and drifted off into space.
In addition to overcoming past technical hurdles, Hayabusa 2 will study a different type of asteroid to answer fundamental questions about the origins of life on Earth, the best targets for space mining and how to deflect a threatening space rock.
Full scientific payload
About the size of a case of beer and weighing in at 10 kilograms, MASCOT will be able to tell us more than MINERVA ever could have. The robot will carry a full scientific payload to study the temperature, chemical composition, surface texture and magnetic properties of the target asteroid, a carbonaceous object called 1999 JU3.
The new lander will be a vital component of the mission. Since it can collect detailed information about its neighbourhood on the surface, it will put any collected samples in context, explains Ralf Jaumann, a DLR planetary researcher. The robot's measurements will also help the main spacecraft decide which rocks to collect and bring back to Earth.
"Since the surface is heterogeneous, it'd be really neat to know on the fly what the compositions are, so you can make adjustments to your sampling strategy," says Trevor Ireland, a planetary scientist at Australia National University in Canberra, who was a member of the first Hayabusa science team.
Like MINERVA, MASCOT was made to jump rather than roll due to the asteroid's variable terrain and weak gravitational field. But since it is much heavier than its predecessor, engineers had to develop a new hopping mechanism: a set of rotating weights that quickly accelerate to create momentum, then decelerate, flinging the robot forward.
Bringers of life
If things go smoothly, MASCOT will help provide the most detailed glimpse yet of a carbonaceous asteroid, the most common type of space rock in our solar system. Some scientists have argued that these rocks were responsible for bringing water to Earth. Others have even suggested that they seeded life on our planet.
Carbonaceous asteroids seem to be "choc-a-block full of organics", says Duncan Steel of the Australian Centre for Astrobiology in Sydney, and if they contain water and are exposed to sunlight, "they're obviously of interest to the origin and evolution of life".
They could also be of practical importance to future space missions and asteroid miners, Steel says. "When we move off the Earth, asteroids will be the most accessible things in the solar system," he says. Carbonaceous asteroids might have everything needed to sustain life, as well as raw materials for manufacturing.
What's more, since these asteroids are so common, knowing more about their structure might be critical to deflecting any incoming threats, says Ireland.
"If you were to send a rocket out there, Bruce Willis-style, you want to know if you could get into trouble," he says. "How do you attach yourself to it if you want to pull it, or how do you blow it up to cause some useful effect?"
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