Hayabusa2 "Peregrine falcon" before take-off
Construction and assembly
Japan is readying an H-2A rocket for liftoff of 3 December 2014 to kick off an audacious six-year roundtrip journey a carbon-rich asteroid, drop a fleet of landers to its surface, collect primordial rock samples, and return the materials to terrestrial laboratories for analysis.
The Hayabusa 2 spacecraft is mated to the top of an H-2A launcher at the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan. Credit: JAXA