Operation status of MINERVA-II twin rovers onboard Hayabusa2 asteroid explorer

Abstract

The authors developed two tiny twin rovers for Hayabusa2 spacecraft, which was launched in December 2014 and arrived at the target asteroid in June 2018. The rovers were deployed onto the target asteroid on 22 September 2018 at the altitude of approximately 50 meters above the surface. The deployment operation was perfectly made and the rovers started the autonomous surface explorations. This was the World first surface exploration on asteroid attained by unmanned robots as well as the first Japanese rover on terrestrial body. This paper describes the explorations attained by MINERVA-II twin rovers upto the present.