Hayabusa2 and JAXA small body exploration program / Prof Masaki Fujimoto (Deputy Director General, ISAS, JAXA)

In the JAXA small body exploration program, we target at those small bodies born in the outer part of the solar system, outside the snowline. While these bodies are considered to play substantial roles in making our planet habitable, there are variety of them, and multiple missions are necessary to obtain matured understanding of the nature of these bodies. Indeed systematic exploration is what the JAXA small body exploration program is aiming at. Hayabusa2 is the first in the program and is a sample return mission to a primitive asteroid. After its arrival at the asteroid Ryugu in June 2018, many steps have been taken to overcome the challenges posed by the unfriendly nature of Ryugu and to acquire a sample of high scientific value. Engineers and scientists have been working together to make a series of successful events including the touch-and-go sampling from the surface on February 22, 2019. What does it take to visit a new asteroid and to grab a sample back from it? This talk will answer the question from a Hayabusa2 perspective.