Launch of Hayabusa2

Hayabusa2 was a Japanese asteroid sample-return spacecraft launched by the space agency JAXA to the near-Earth asteroid Ryugu, a dark, carbon-rich body that scientists believed held material from the early Solar System. It reached the asteroid in 2018 and deployed small rovers and a lander, then collected a sample from the surface and, after firing an explosive projectile to create a crater, a second sample from below the surface. In December 2020 the sample capsule landed in the Australian outback, containing several grams of material, and analysis has found organic molecules and signs of water-bearing minerals. The spacecraft itself continued on an extended mission to visit other asteroids. It follows the first Hayabusa, which had problems but returned samples from Itokawa in 2010.

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