A playful boy just back home from school tossing his book rucksack through the front door to hurriedly join his mates outside – a jovial scene I was reminded of as the space probe Hayabusa II, Japan’s pride in space technology, dropped a “can” onto an Australian dessert and flew right back into space on another mission in space.

The can, mark you, was no ordinary tin can but a capsule and the boy Japan’s space probe Hayabusa II.

A moving dot of light emerged in the night sky over Australia, early on June 6 morning, traversed a while and landed into the darkness of a desert at 2:30 a.m. JT. The dot of light was the capsule the space probe Hayabusa II had dropped a while back on its way right back to space for another mission. It is supposed to contain sand particles collected on the surface of the planetoid Ryugu 186.411.357 miles away.

It was a jovial, super impressive performance of Hayabusa II as it has thus far travelled a gross distance of nearly 300 thousand miles in six years. What’s amazing is that the probe has just completed part of its mission and is now on its way to a near-earth asteroid, named 1998 KY26. JAXA says Hayabusa II is to travel around the earth 11 times in 10.5 years to get to this asteroid in July, 2031.

Now, speaking rather personally, I am 85, going 86 in three months, should be around to witness what happens. Should the ion battery on Hayabusa II live long enough to make its triumphant flight back home, I, alas, wouldn’t be around to cheer his glorious homecoming. Or would I?

Well, having witnessed a super extraordinary feat, I momentarily forgot the nerve-wracking episodes of the China-born virus and gladly cherish the story of how Japan tops the world in space technology. Do you know, folks, Japan is currently the one and only nation capable of making a round trip in space?

More power to Hayabusa II!

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