Woomera landing site in 2020 for capsule with material samples from far asteroid Ryugu by Japanese space mission
The Hayabusa 2 asteroid-samples capsule descent operation (top left) was tracked at Woomera rocket range mission control by Royal Australian Air Force personnel assisting the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) team. At right: JAXA team members rescue the capsule in the South Australian northwest outback.
Images courtesy JAXA and Sarah Mullins, ABC News.
Woomera rocket range complex, 450 kilometres northwest of Adelaide, was part of another phase of space history in December 2020 when it was used for the world’s first return of a sample of gas from deep in the universe.
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) used Woomera as the South Australian landing site for its Hayabusa2 capsule with particle samples from primordial asteroid Ryugu. A 72-member JAXA team travelled to Woomera prohibited area to retrieve the capsule after it was released from the Hayabusa2 spacecraft and sent towards Earth with samples collected from travelling more than five billion kilometres on a six-year mission to and from the asteroid.
Royal Australian Air Force personnel at Woomera’s mission control centre helped the JAXA team on Sunday, December 6, track the capsule that turned into a fireball as it entered the atmosphere 120 kilometres above Earth. It then deployed a drag parachute and a second main parachute. The descent was observed by NASA scientists in aircraft. A radio beacon on the capsule helped the Japanese scientists refine the position in Woomera’s 122,000-square kilometre defence area that encompasses the traditional lands of six Aboriginal groups.
Hayabusa2 was Woomera’s second asteroid sample return mission. In 2010, Hayabus1 returned with specks of dust blown off the surface of an S-type or stony asteroid called Itokawa, from the inner solar system.
Hayabusa2 took underground material and gas from Ryugu, a C-type asteroid, believed to contain organic material and water from the outer solar system. Scientists hoped its mission would help answer some of the most fundamental questions about how the solar system formed and where elements, such as water, came from.
The capsule was taken from Woomera via private plane to JAXA’s Sagamihara Campus’ curation centre and arrived in Japan about 56 hours after its landing, well within the 100-hour time limit to prevent contamination by terrestrial gas. The Hayabusa2 spacecraft would continue on for 11 years to perform a reconnaissance mission to asteroid 1998 KY26, a small 30 metre-diameter near-Earth object that spins at a high rate of 10.7 minutes.