Japan Makes History By Landing Robots On An Asteroid

Sarah Benton Feitlinger
Fri, 12 Oct 2018 11:39:45 -0700

The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, made history on September 21, 2018, when its unmanned probe Hayabusa2 successfully landed two moving robots, collectively called MINERVA-II1, on asteroid Ryugu’s surface. A few weeks later, on October 2, the spacecraft repeated the feat by deploying a third, slightly bigger, rover called the Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout (MASCOT). The information collected from the primitive asteroid could help shed light on the origins of our solar system and how the first life forms arose on Earth.