Lumpology Space Time Project:
First rover on an asteroid (2018)
Hayabusa 2 is a mission that was launched by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.
The goal of the mission is to collect samples of an asteroid and return them to earth.
Additionally, the Hayabusa 2 spacecraft had three small solar powered rovers and a battery powered rover on board:
HIBOU, OWL and Rover-2 from Japan, as well as MASCOT a cube rover provided by the German Aerospace Center.
On September 21st the first two rovers touched down on the asteroid Ryugu.
The rovers are cylindrical in design with lots of small legs on the bottom and top of the crafts.
The rovers move using rotating motors that generate torque, causing them to jump.
Because of Ryugu’s small size (1km in diameter) the rovers can remain off the ground for up to 15 minutes during a jump.
On board the HIBOU and OWL rovers is a wide angle camera, a stereo camera, and thermometers.
Rover-2 on the other hand is more advanced and has in addition to the two cameras and thermometers, an accelerometer and optical/ultraviolet lights for illumination.
Rover-2 when deployed will use its instruments to detect dust particles in preparation for the Hayabusa 2 sample collection maneuvers.
MASCOT was deployed on the 3rd of October 2018 and successfully operated for 16 hours on the surface of Ryugu.
Hayabusa 2 is currently an ongoing mission.
Sources:
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/first-rovers-explore-asteroid-just-sent-photos-home
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayabusa2
https://www.nec.com/en/press/201412/global_20141203_01.html