On June 28, 2025, Professor Shogo Tachibana of the UTOPS will give a lecture at “Asteroid Day Special Talk 2025,” to be held at the Sagamihara City Museum.

His talk, titled “Mission to Apophis 3: Probing the Surface through Impact Experiments,” will introduce ongoing studies related to exploration of the asteroid Apophis.

Date and Time: June 28, 2025, 1:30 PM – 4:00 PM

Venue: Main Conference Room (Basement Floor), Sagamihara City Museum (3-1-15 Takane, Chuo-ku, Sagamihara, Kanagawa, Japan)

Satellite venues: Kakuda (Miyagi Prefecture) and Kobe (Hyogo Prefecture)

Capacity: 200 people (first-come, first-served)

Admission: Free

For more details, please see here.

An essay by Professor Shogo Tachibana of UTOPS was published in the June 2025 issue of Kagaku, a monthly science magazine published by Iwanami Shoten.

The essay, titled “A Sampler that Traveled through Space,” is part of the serialized series “From the Night Classroom to Ryugu: Challenges of a Part-Time High School Science Club.” The article describes real experiences behind the story and discusses the development of collaborative research related to the Hayabusa2 mission.

For more information, please see here.

The Tachibana Laboratory at UTOPS has signed a joint research agreement with ALE Co., Ltd. (https://star-ale.com/), a company whose mission is to “make space closer for all of us together”, for an exploration mission to the asteroid “99942 Apophis”.

[Comments]
Lena Okajima, Founder and CEO, ALE Co., Ltd.:
“We are very pleased that our technology will be applied to an important effort in space science research. Through this joint research, we aim to help reveal the unknown aspects of space and contribute to a sustainable future for human society through the utilization of space resources. ALE will continue to collaborate with research institutions and companies, including the University of Tokyo, and pursue innovative challenges for the advancement of space science.”

Shogo Tachibana, Professor, University of Tokyo Organization for Planetary and Space Science (UTOPS), Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo:
“Recent missions such as Hayabusa2 and NASA’s OSIRIS-REx have shown that asteroid surfaces are highly diverse. This method will enable us to investigate the properties of surface materials at multiple locations on an asteroid. It is expected to contribute significantly to solar system science, planetary defense, and the utilization of space resources. The approach may also be applied to various future exploration missions, and I look forward to the progress of this joint research.”

For more details, please see here.