Hayabusa 2 Set to Launch Tonight

The Japanese space agency JAXA is scheduled to launch a very important mission tonight: The Hayabusa 2 space probe, set to visit the asteroid 1999 JU3. This is a very ambitious mission: It will land on the asteroid, collect samples, deploy three small rovers, and then send the samples back to Earth for study. And that's only part of the mission; you can read articles by Emily Lakdawalla at the Planetary Society and Paul Sutherland at Sen for more details. JAXA will have a live webcast for the la...