JAXA plans to bring back pristine early solar system samples from a comet
Japan's space agency, JAXA, has been knocking it out of the park with small-body exploration missions for decades. They had historic successes with both Hayabusa and Hayabusa2, and they are going to visit the Martian moons soon with the Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission. But after that, they a...
Image: Phys.org
Japan's space agency, JAXA, has been knocking it out of the park with small-body exploration missions for decades. They had historic successes with both Hayabusa and Hayabusa2, and they are going to visit the Martian moons soon with the Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission. But after that, they are aiming for something much more pristine and arguably more difficult—a comet. The Next Generation Small-Body Return (NGSR) was recently described in a paper presented at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC), and is under assessment as a large-class mission for the 2030s.
Originally published at Phys.org
