Scientists behind a historic mission in space expressed delight as 2 rovers landed safely on an asteroid after a Japanese spacecraft dropped them there on Friday and sent back the first images from the surface of the space rock Ryugu.
Dubbed MINERVA-II1, the robotic explorers are the first of their kind to be successfully landed on an asteroid.
The Japanese space agency JAXA announced that both units were operational after a period of silence between the unmanned spacecraft Hayabusa-2 depositing them and connection being established with the team on Earth.
“I cannot find words to express how happy I am that we were able to realise mobile exploration on the surface of an asteroid,” said Hayabusa-2 project manager Dr Yuichi Tsuda.
In turn, project mission manager Dr Makoto Yoshikawa stated: “I was so moved to see these small rovers successfully explore an asteroid surface because we could not achieve this at the time of Hayabusa, 13 years ago.”
Tetsuo Yoshimitsu, who led the MINERVA-II1 program, said that “although he was disappointed with the blurred image that first came from the rover, it was good to be able to capture this shot as it was recorded by the rover as the Hayabusa2 spacecraft is shown.”