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Japanese spacecraft eyes tricky asteroid landing

Andrew Paul

created: Sept. 18, 2025, 3:34 p.m. | updated: Sept. 28, 2025, 3:25 p.m.

Japan’s Hyabusa2 space probe is currently about 105.5 million miles away, en route to its second asteroid rendezvous. Hayabusa2 continued the project’s legacy by accomplishing a similar retrieval from another asteroid (Ryugu) in 2020. After delivering its payload, JAXA engineers then sent the small vehicle back out into the void towards asteroid KY26 for a final collection mission slated to take place in 2031. A size comparison between the previous target asteroid for Japan’s Hayabusa2 space mission, 162173 Ryugu, and 1998 KY26. At only about 36-feet-wide it is smaller than a full-sized school bus, and barely larger than the Hayabusa2 space probe itself.

1 month, 3 weeks ago: Popular Science