At the beginning of the Hayabusa2 Project, realistic illustrations were drawn by Akihiro Ikeshita. These illustrations have now been revised to match the actual asteroid Ryugu. These illustrations show our arrival at Ryugu and the first touchdown.

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  Figure 1: Arrival at Ryugu (revised version) (by Akihiro Ikeshita※）

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  Figure 2: First touchdown (revised version) (by Akihiro Ikeshita※）

For reference, these are the illustrations that were drawn by Mr Ikeshita before we arrived at Ryugu. They are drawn after a consultation with the Hayabusa2 Project, but the actual Ryugu was quite different from what any of us had imagined in advance!

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  Figure 3: Ryugu arrival (early version) (by Akihiro Ikeshita※）

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  Figure 4: First touchdown (early version) (by Akihiro Ikeshita※）

In Figure 3, the ion engine was drawn to be operating but as it was not used at the time of arrival, this was changed in the revised Figure 1. The site for touchdown was initially planned to be a location similar to that drawn in Figure 4, but the actual terrain resembled the site illustrated in Figure 2. It is clear why this resulted in extremely difficult touchdown operations!

※ In the illustrations posted here, the Hayabusa2 Project asked Akihiro Ikeshita to draw the images. Please credit as follows:
・The illustration copyright is owned by Akihiro Ikeshita.
・Illustrations may be freely used for personal use, but please contact Akihiro Ikeshita for further use. (Akihiro Ikeshita’s contact information is .)

Hayabusa2 Project
2019.03.28