TOKYO -- The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's pinpoint landing of an asteroid probe was a technical achievement made possible only by working with the private sector to keep up with better-funded counterparts in the U.S. and China.
The Hayabusa2 finished its 300-million-km journey this month by touching down on a patch with a radius of just 3 meters on the Ryugu asteroid, which is 800 times farther from Earth than the moon. The landing area was shrunk from 50 meters in radius due to the asteroid's rugged surface. It is not uncommon for lunar and Mars landings to be off by more than a kilometer.
