Japan will provide the orbiter and NASA will build the rover. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., is making the rover, which will run on solar panels, Tholen said. The collected samples will be relayed to the orbiter. Scientists have since obtained more positional observations about 1989 ML from the telescopes at Mauna Kea and elsewhere, Tholen said. 1989 ML is now the preferred target despite its tiny size.
Scientists already have samples of asteroids known as meteorites.
But scientists could never determine which meteorite came from which asteroid. With this mission, there will be no confusion, Tholen said. The other U.S. scientists selected for the mission are Beth Clark of Cornell University, Faith Vilas and Michael Zolensky of NASA's Johnson Space Center, Peter Smith of the University of Arizona and Andrew Cheng of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. After the mission is over, Tholen hopes to get re-involved in a future mission to Pluto. Tholen said his inspiration for pursuing astronomy involved three primary motivators.