After narrowing down the possible landing sites for Hayabusa2, mission scientists performed a sampling rehearsal on Wednesday (Oct. 24) at 10:47 p.m. EST (0247 GMT on Oct. 25), and the mission is "ramping up the steps toward a successful touchdown," Masaki Fujimoto of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said at a news conference here at the 50th meeting of the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Sciences (DPS).

At that time, the spacecraft descended to an altitude of 7.5 miles (12 kilometers) above the asteroid's surface and deployed a small target marker at the landing site, Fujimoto said. The spacecraft will go all the way down to the surface to retrieve a sample no earlier than January 2019, and that sample will land in Australia in 2020.