AP,Tokyo :
A Japanese space probe named after a falcon blasted off today, setting off on a six-year round trip to an asteroid for samples that scientists hope will help reveal the origins of life.
The launch of the Hayabusa 2, postponed twice because of bad weather, comes less than a month after a European Space Agency probe landed on a comet in a pioneering mission.
Hayabusa means peregrine falcon in Japanese.
The probe will map the surface of the asteroid before touching down, deploying small explosives to blast a crater and then collect resulting debris.
Asteroids are believed to have formed at the dawn of the solar system and the probe’s target is one called 1999 JU3, which scientists believe contains organic matter that may have contributed to life on Earth.
The probe is expected to arrive at the asteroid in mid-2018 and return with samples in 2020, the year that Tokyo hosts the Summer Olympic Games.
The mission should help Japan’s space programme put a troubled past well behind it.
The first Hayabusa probe was unable to collect as much material as hoped but still made history by being the first vessel to bring back samples from an asteroid. Its seven-year mission ended in 2010 when it blazed a trail over Australian before slamming into the desert.
A Japanese space probe named after a falcon blasted off today, setting off on a six-year round trip to an asteroid for samples that scientists hope will help reveal the origins of life.
The launch of the Hayabusa 2, postponed twice because of bad weather, comes less than a month after a European Space Agency probe landed on a comet in a pioneering mission.
Hayabusa means peregrine falcon in Japanese.
The probe will map the surface of the asteroid before touching down, deploying small explosives to blast a crater and then collect resulting debris.
Asteroids are believed to have formed at the dawn of the solar system and the probe’s target is one called 1999 JU3, which scientists believe contains organic matter that may have contributed to life on Earth.
The probe is expected to arrive at the asteroid in mid-2018 and return with samples in 2020, the year that Tokyo hosts the Summer Olympic Games.
The mission should help Japan’s space programme put a troubled past well behind it.
The first Hayabusa probe was unable to collect as much material as hoped but still made history by being the first vessel to bring back samples from an asteroid. Its seven-year mission ended in 2010 when it blazed a trail over Australian before slamming into the desert.
