Hayabusa2 Last main engine injection start for return. JAXA May 12 11:54
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency has announced that the Japanese Hayabusa2 probe has begun injection of its final main engine, aiming to return to Earth in November or December.
The Japanese spacecraft “Hayabusa 2”, which has finished exploring the asteroid “Ryugu”, injected the first main engine for returning to the earth for more than 800 hours until February, and is currently about 1 hour from the earth. It flies at a position of 660 million kilometers away.
JAXA announced on the 12th that "Hayabusa 2" has started injection of the last main engine for return.
It is said that the JAXA team that is operating the operation confirmed that at 7:00 am on the 12th, one of the four ion engines, which is the main engine, started the injection normally according to the program.
This main engine injection will continue until around September when the distance to the earth approaches 40 million kilometers.
And after that, without using the main engine, the orbit will be fine-tuned with a device for attitude control, and in November or December, a capsule that seems to contain rock fragments will be dropped into the Australian desert.
JAXA has completed the formation of a team that analyzes rock fragments, etc. centered on domestic researchers. In addition to collecting capsules to study the formation of the solar system, it will analyze whether there are organic matter related to life. It has become.