The first two phases of the Hayabusa project of the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA), which aims to study the formation of the Solar System, have been successfully completed.
Its first phase was the 2003 launch of the Hayabusa spacecraft, designed to make physical contact with the asteroid's surface. Samples were collected from the asteroid 25143 Itokawa (1998 SF36) in 2005, and the samples were successfully brought back to Earth for analysis. With the Hayabusa mission, completed in 2010, a sample was taken for analysis from the surface of another celestial body other than the Moon for the first time.
The second leg of JAXA's project is the Hayabusa-2 spacecraft, launched in 2014 and rendezvous with the asteroid 162173 Ryugu (1999 JU3) in 2018. Another significance of this project is that the satellite left a small explosive on the asteroid and created an artificial crater on the surface. The capsule, which carried the rock samples collected from the asteroid, reached Earth on December 6, 2020, on the scheduled date.
The project, which was carried out and successfully completed with both these spacecraft, are very important steps for the development of “asteroid mining.” Samples brought by JAXA from the asteroid Ryugu can be viewed at https://darts.isas.jaxa.jp/curation/hayabusa2/.
TÜBİTAK National Observatory contributed to this project with astrometric and photometric observations made using T100 and RTT150 telescopes (1, 2).
TÜBİTAK National Observatory was awarded the "Honorary Award" by JAXA for its observational contributions to this project.
1 “Optical observations of NEA 162173 (1999 JU3) during the 2011-2012 apparition”, Astronomy & Astrophysics, Volume 550, id.L11, 4 pp (12BT100- with project data of 327)
2 "Optical observations of NEA 162173 Ryugu (1999 JU3) during the 2016 apparition", American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #48, id.326.12, October 2016
Ryugu asteroid image taken by the ONC-T camera on June 30, 2018, at the "HOME" location where Hayabusa2 comes closest to the surface, from about 20 km away https://www.hayabusa2.jaxa.jp/topics/20180711je/index_e.html