JAXA Plans Hybrid Fix for Hayabusa2 After Engine Failure

JAXA engineers will attempt to repair Hayabusa2's last operational ion engine by combining parts from two separate units, according to gizmodo.com. The spacecraft's remaining engine broke down in mid-August.

An examination showed the failed engine's ion source had stopped working, while its neutralizer remained operational. The fix would rewire the circuitry to pair Engine B's functional neutralizer with the healthy ion source of Engine D.

JAXA plans to restart the engine as early as late October. Even if the repair succeeds, it is not yet certain that Hayabusa2 will reach asteroid 1998 KY26.

A mission with a history of engine trouble

Three of Hayabusa2's four engines, A, C, and D, degraded or malfunctioned over the years, while Engine B was mostly preserved during the trip to Ryugu for use during the extended mission. The same hybrid approach was used during the first Hayabusa mission, which returned samples from asteroid Itokawa in 2010.

Hayabusa2 launched in December 2014, arrived at Ryugu in June 2018 and retrieved a sample from beneath the asteroid's surface by firing an impactor to create an artificial crater. On December 6, 2020, it dropped off samples from Ryugu in the Australian outback before beginning a second journey toward a smaller space rock.

Asteroid 1998 KY26 is a small, lumpy near-Earth object thought to contain about a million gallons of water and rotates very quickly.