Associate Professor Hikaru Yabuta, Graduate School of Science of Hiroshima University, and a member of the science team of JAXA’s Hayabusa2 Project, appears on the project’s trailer movie.

Hayabusa2 spacecraft has arrived at the near-Earth C-type asteroid “Ryugu” on 27th June 2018. Return of the collected asteroid sample will be scheduled in the end of 2020. The mission aims to explore the origin and evolution of Solar System and life. On October 3rd, “MASCOT”, a lander on board HAYABUSA-2, has successfully landed on Ryugu to carry out the observation.
(See the JAXA’s website: http://www.hayabusa2.jaxa.jp/en/topics/20181005e_MSC_ONC/)

This summer, Dr. Yabuta contributed to the landing site selection. She also leads the organic macromolecule analysis team of the initial analyses of returned samples in the mission.

This trailer video was made by German Aero Space Center (Deutshces Zentrum für Luft-und Raumfahrt; DLR), which is one of the international partners of Hayabusa2. The movie is available from YouTube.