TopicsSpecial session and press conference
on Hayabusa2 to be held at DPS

DPS is the Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society and is one of the largest academic societies for the planetary field in the world. This year will be the 50th meeting for the DPS
( https://aas.org/meetings/dps50 ), held in Knoxville, Tennessee in the USA from October 21 to 26. A special session dedicated to Hayabusa2 will be held during this meeting, where one session in the conference will be devoted to announcements only from this mission. This is a first for Hayabusa2. Hayabusa2 will also be the subject of a press briefing held during the conference.

The Hayabusa2 special session involves thirteen studies presented in the poster session on October 25 and nine oral presentations held on October 26. The titles and abstracts of these research presentations are listed as sessions 411 (poster presentation) and 501 (oral presentation) in the table of contents of the conference abstract book available on the DPS website ( https://aas.org/files/final_abstract_program.pdf ). In addition to these special sessions, there is one additional presentation related to Hayabusa2 in session 309 (309.03 in the abstract book). This brings the total number of Hayabusa2 presentations up to 23.

There will also be a press conference held on October 25 at 12:00 (October 26, 01:00 JST) with the title “Hayabusa2 Explores Asteroid Ryugu”. The information for this press conference is at:
https://aas.org/meetings/dps50/2nd-media-advisory
The title of the presentations and speakers at the press conference are as follows:

  • Hayabusa2’s Operations and Observations of Ryugu and Initial Operation of the MINERVA-II1 Rovers and MASCOT
    Masaki Fujimoto (Inst. of Space & Astronautical Science / Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency)

  • Landing-Site Selection to Provide Key Scientific and Engineering Findings from Proximal Operations and Material Sampling
    Hikaru Yabuta (Hiroshima University)

  • Ryugu’s Surface Seen from Hayabusa2’s Remote-Sensing Observations
    Eri Tatsumi (University of Tokyo)
    Deborah Domingue (Planetary Science Institute)
    Lucille Le Corre (Planetary Science Institute)

  • Initial Operation of the MASCOT After Its Deployment
    Ralf Jaumann (German Aerospace Center)

There will be a webcast of the press conference available here:
https://aas.org/media-press/aas-press-conference-webcasts
In a later post, we will highlight what was announced at the press conference.


Hayabusa2 project
2018.10.25