Hayabusa2’s Next Target is a Tiny 11 Meter Asteroid

Per Hackaday, Japan's Hayabusa2 spacecraft completed its primary asteroid sample mission in 2020 but remains active with new targets. It recently conducted a close flyby of asteroid 98943 Torifune at roughly five kilometers per second, passing within eight hundred meters — a high-speed encounter that tested a probe not originally designed for such tracking. Next up is asteroid 1998 KY 26, just eleven meters across, but the rendezvous won't occur until July twenty thirty-one. By then, Hayabusa2 will have circled Earth twice more, its radiation-scarred sensors and depleted ion engines further worn. The plan: enter orbit, deploy a marker and small projectile, and attempt a landing — almost certainly the spacecraft's final mission, with implications for planetary defense and asteroid science.

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