Original subtitles

- [Narrator] The building blocks of the solar system

are quickly giving up their secrets.

Two major missions are on their way.

The NASA OSIRUS REx,

which is now closing in on its target asteroid, Bennu,

and the JAXA mission, Hyabusa 2 to Ryugu,

which is well into it's observation leg of the mission,

studying the asteroid up close.

Both missions hope to return samples to earth

for a more complete study.

(computer noises)

(intense orchestral music)

A three and a half year journey to asteroid Ryugu is over,

and the Hyabusa 2 science mission begins.

Ryugu, part of the Apollo group,

is potentially a threat to earth in the years to come.

It's an unusual asteroid, a CG type,

meaning it has qualities

of both C type and G type carbonaceous asteroids.

It is just under a kilometer in diameter and fast-moving.

As part of its payload,

the Hybusa 2 has several deployable landers.

Two MINERVA II's, the Franco-German Mascot lander,

and target acquisition markers for the touchdown.

- Okay, we want to see the boulders,

we have a chance to view the boulders

in a vertical structure.

We also see the crack in the boulders,

there is also regulate.

We know from the spectral information we have so far

that there is something a little bit redder,

something a little bit bluer on the surface,

so that's very interesting.

Because there are differences on the surface,

we have the feeling that the bluer,

it may be a little bit fresher than the redder.

And that basically gives us a good idea of the history

of the material on the surface.

And of course there are a number of landing sites,

which are red and blue,

or which have red and blue in it,

and that's probably preferred, at least for the camera,

so we have chance to see both of the surfaces.

- From the feedback I have obtained now

from our principle investigators of the instruments,

seems to be that it's a very interesting asteroid.

And that there are several aspects

which is covering the science objective of each instrument.

- [Narrator] First to be deployed to the asteroid

were two MINERVA probes.

These rovers are based on the original MINERVA craft

flown on Hyabusa 1,

which unfortunately failed to land on their target asteroid.

These ones, however, were successful.

They have radioed back several stunning photographs

from the surface of the asteroid,

including this sequence of the sun crossing the skyline

as the asteroid tumbles.

- Asteroid missions are very important and very interesting

from the scientific point of view

because it is believed that asteroid and comets

are bringing water to the earth

in the very early phase of the development of the earth.

And with this water and also organic materials,

it is believed that life on earth has developed

and very importantly,

is also to understand the evolution of the solar system,

because asteroid are supposed to be building blocks

of our early solar system.

- The Hyabusa 2 mission has been years in the making.

As with any deep space probe,

years are spent on the drawing board

developing the hardware and software.

Then come years of construction and extensive testing.

The aim of the Hyabusa 2 mission

is to learn more about the origin and evolution

of the solar system.

As asteroids account

for some of the most primordial celestial bodies,

researching them gives us a glimpse into our cosmic past.

Scientists are keen to learn more

about the properties and structure of near earth asteroids

in order to gain new insights

into how our solar system formed,

and how water and life emerged on earth.

It's an audacious mission.

- I mean, they're flying to an asteroid,

now we map the asteroid, then a lander will be deployed,

like Mascot or MINERVA.

They're trying to do three samples

and then they have also explosives on board

to produce a crater on the surface in the asteroid.

I mean, to me it's a unique mission they are doing,

and we are a part of it, so I'm really proud of it.

- And, of course, we are interested in the geology,

the geomorphology, the structure,

the size of the big boulders,

and also the structure of the regulate,

and giving some hints of the evolution of the surface,

of the forming and evolution of the surface of Ryugu.

And I think for a camera,

all of the landing sites are quite okay.

So the most interesting thing is to see the big boulders

from the vertical structure.

We really can look how deep they are in the surface,

and there are many boulders on Ryugu,

so I'm pretty sure we'll get a good view

of this interesting part of this asteroid.

(intense string music)

- [Narrator] The second batch of asteroid landers,

developed by the German and French space organizations,

were launched and after a short free fall,

successfully landed at the southern hemisphere

of asteroid Ryugu.

After bouncing several times on the rock strewn surface,

the two landers have begun their scientific research.

- And you know that Mascot is made to bounce.

That makes it robust,

but it also means that the final resting location

is not exactly possible to calculate it.

So there's a dispersion of possible sites

and there are some variation in between.

There could be, among these many, many possibilities,

some bad ones, and we have to go to places

where the chance to hit a good one is highest,

but it does exclude that we end up in a bad one.

- Autonomous handling doesn't mean

that Mascot is doing everything as he likes to,

so there is lots of sequences and commands that's behind,

which are carefully tested and planned.

So the robustness of these sequences have to be tested

against all these difficult, different conditions

we can meet on the asteroid.

So if we bounce or land more in the west or more in the east

for this the input Mascot has,

which he uses for his autonomously,

this is really carefully planned and tested.

And so there's all the work,

and I think we did a very well job, and so I'm relaxed.

- [Narrator] With it's four instruments,

including the Micro-Mica spectrometer,

developed by the IAS Space Astrophysics Institute at Oxate,

with CNES oversight,

Mascot is set to analyze the mineral composition of grains

in the asteroid's soil in an attempt to unlock its secrets

at two sites just a few meters apart.

They also took some fascinating images.

- I think, at least for me, the most important question

is the big number of boulders.

Where did they come from?

Why has this asteroid so many boulders?

Why are these boulders, to some extent,

covered by the surface, so they are in the sub-surface?

And the question here is,

what are the source of the boulders?

Are they from the interior or coming from outside,

or they are linked from some kind of condition

from bigger body where Ryugu is now a related part of it?

So, I think that's the most important question.

- Mascot was operational for over 17 hours,

during which it collected data from the asteroid's surface

and transmitted it back to Hyabusa 2 overhead,

which relayed the data back to earth.

The next probe to be released is the third MINERVA robot,

the largest of the MINERVA's.

- I would like just to express again this amazing work,

which the whole team has done.

DLR, as well as CNES, as well as JAXA surely.

So, this was a very good example of very good collaboration

on an international level,

and I hope that it will go on in the future.

- GNC that has to tell your autonomy manager,

the right side or which side we should turn to upright.

- [Narrator] The entire mission

has been a close collaboration between nations.

Japanese, German, and French scientists and engineers

have enjoyed over a decade of scientific cooperation,

even if there are language barriers.

(foreign language spoken)

- I like this because

it's a small mission with little overhead.

And it's very nice to work with the Japanese,

because they are very success oriented,

they are willing to take risks,

they have also, because of language issues,

much less paperwork than NASA or ESA does.

So most things are done in discussions,

and you agree on something, you look into your eyes

and say yes we do it, yes, and you rely on the words.

You don't sign big papers, and that's something I like,

because it makes work so much easier and smooth and quick.

- [Raf] Oh yes, the mission is very good.

There are in all the teams from Hyabusa Mascot,

there are very excellent engineers

and also very excellent scientists,

so I'm really, really confident and excited.

And that's the first time we do this.

- [Tra] The Hyabusa 2 mission is very interesting

from the point of view

because Hyabusa 2 is investigating a C type asteroid.

Ryugu is a very primitive asteroid,

which is supposed to have organic material on the surface.

In addition, Hyabusa 2 has got in situ signs

provided by the Mascot lander,

and also two to three further small MINERVA landers,

and it is, or it will bring some samples back to earth,

so that we can investigate it then on earth in the labs.

(intense string music)

- [Narrator] In the spirit of friendly competition,

NASA was quick to congratulate JAXA

for reaching their asteroid first.

- This is Dante Lauretta, leader of the NASA OSIRUS REx

asteroid sample return mission,

congratulating you on the successful approach

to asteroid Ryugu.

We're all very proud of your amazing accomplishments so far,

and we look forward to working with you together

over the next year to maximize the scientific return

from our two missions.

- NASA's OSIRUS REx probe

is about to reach its target, Bennu,

another CG type asteroid close to earth's orbit.

A less ambitious mission, OSIRUS REx will touch down

and retrieve a surface sample, then return it to earth.

- Asteroids are very interesting objects,

so they are very primary.

They are the fundamental things

and fundamental material of the solar system.

And on the other hand they have, to some extent,

they cross the orbit of the earth,

they are dangerous, and just to know their structure,

composition will help

in order to avoid a collision with the earth

if this might happen.

And that will give us enough information

in order to really find a way to mitigate

this kind of catastrophic future.

- [Narrator] And there is no shortage

of conceivably dangerous asteroids out there.

- It's one of the main points, of course.

Because we really cannot exclude it

but it's on a long time scale,

but in any case, we know from the past,

and we know from the past four billion years

that this is a real danger for planets.

- Sixty six million years ago

one asteroid measuring 10 kilometers across

completely changed earth's climate,

wiping out two thirds of living species,

and consigning the dinosaurs

to history books and museum displays.

(mystical music)

Fortunately, large asteroid strikes are very rare,

but smaller ones can still be dangerous.

Along with other organizations across the world,

ESA is working hard to identify and track them.

(mystical music)

- We currently have a detection rate of something like

200 asteroids per month, and maybe 3, 4, 5 of them

are objects which might hit the earth.

So, currently we have 740 objects where we don't know

if they will hit the earth of not.

There's none which is really a serious threat,

which we currently know of.

There's plenty of things out there

which we have not yet detected,

which we are still searching for,

but from what we know right now,

there's nothing which we have to really worry about.

What we have already seen,

is if a 20 meter object would approach,

that was the case five years ago in Chely, Binsk,

when a 20 meter object exploded over a city in Russia,

and 1,500 people went to hospital

because they were close to a window,

they were hit by fragments, and they were not aware,

nobody knew that this object would come.

And this is what we could improve in the future,

that our telescope would detect this

a week maybe in advance.

- [Narrator] ESA's new Fly Eye telescope

will conduct automated nightly sky surveys.

It works by splitting the image into 16 smaller sub images,

greatly expanding the field of view.

- We planned our Fly Eye telescope,

and easily we can scan the sky within 48 hours,

so whenever an object

bigger than 10-15 meters would approach,

we should be able to see it beforehand,

and then we would pass this information to the authorities.

- Currently, the first Fly Eye telescope

is foreseen to be placed in Sicily near the (mumbles).

There are other free telescope for seeing the frame

of the the NASA project,

and there are many advantages

in it for identical telescopes,

both placed in northern and southern hemisphere.

The coverage of the both hemisphere

is due to geometric reasons in order to cover

the full celestial sphere.

Then considering that a telescope needs a clear sky

for observation, doubling the number of telescope

allow us to compensate in case of bad weather conditions.

(intense orchestral music)

- [Narrator] ESA's Fly Eye telescope

will improve our chances of detecting

these potentially dangerous objects,

while the asteroid missions will increase our knowledge

of asteroids and look at ways of protecting our planet.

The telescope was designed and built

by a consortium of companies

from Italy, Poland, and Romania.

- The Fly Eye telescope is based on novel and regional

optical architecture, that makes, as the name says,

the eye of the insects.

In fact, it is composed by

16 independent, single telescopes

that share a common primary mirror.

This way we can join together different optical features

that are difficult to combine together

in a single telescope.

And every single optical channel, every single telescope

that composes the Fly Eye telescope

is provided with a focal plane,

which already provides a large field of view.

The combination of the 16 field of views,

creates a very huge field of view.

In fact, we have for each single telescope

2.75 square degrees of field of view.

That multiplied by 16 gives the 44 feet field of view

of the overall instrument.

This is very important due to the fact

that with such a large field of view,

you can map large ares of the sky very quickly,

and you can, this way, scan the full visible sky

at least three times per night.

A typical observation of the telescope

is about 40 to 60 seconds exposure time.

During this time, of course,

the structure must be very stiff in order to avoid

the vibration that could blur the image

and diminish the possibility of the telescope

to look for faint objects.

And this is very important from the optical point of view,

due to the fact that all the performances

that are collected together in the telescope

must be maintained also from a mechanical point of view.

(mellow guitar music)

- Fly Eye telescope, due to its large field of view

and also the capability to quick scan the sky,

allow to arrive up to three

complete scanning of the sky per night.

This feature allow to implement what we call wide survey,

what exist today is what is called the deep survey.

So specific observation of an asteroid very far.

But today we think we are the first,

we are offering a service to cover all of the world.

Because we can inform the population with a week in advance

that an asteroid can hit to the earth,

so we can protect the population.

This instrument can detect an object like a tennis ball

at an orbit 1000 kilometer

moving at 10 kilometer per second.

After 10 detections, we can calculate the orbit

to with an accuracy of 20 meter along a track.

So an important feature,

and we can implement aerial cooperative way,

between aerial and optical.

- [Narrator] ESA is currently working

on a set of space safety and security activities,

which focus on threats, such as space weather,

artificial debris, and asteroids.

By enhancing the existing

space situational awareness program,

these will help us better understand the risks

to our planet and prevent disaster.

- Searching for asteroids and mitigating the risk of impact,

while at the same time

collaborating with international partners,

that's how I see how ESA can contribute

to fulfill UN sustainable development goals.

(mystical music)

- [Narrator] All going well, the Hyabusa 2 sample

will land in the Australian outback sometime in 2020.

OSIRUS REx will follow with a sample for return in 2023.

(intense orchestral music)

(wind blows)