Hayabusa2

Hayabusa2 built on the lessons of the original Hayabusa mission, which returned the first asteroid samples to Earth in 2010 despite numerous technical failures. The successor spacecraft was designed with improved reliability and more ambitious sampling capabilities.

The spacecraft arrived at the 900-meter-wide asteroid 162173 Ryugu in June 2018. Over the following year and a half, it deployed multiple small rovers and landers onto the asteroid''s surface, collected surface samples, and executed a unique experiment: it fired a 2-kilogram copper projectile at the asteroid at 2 km/s to create an artificial crater, then collected subsurface material exposed by the impact.

Hayabusa2 departed Ryugu in November 2019 and returned its sample capsule to Earth on December 6, 2020, landing in the Australian outback. The capsule contained 5.4 grams of material, far exceeding the mission''s 0.1-gram requirement. Analysis revealed amino acids, water-bearing minerals, and organic compounds, supporting the hypothesis that asteroids delivered the building blocks of life to early Earth.

The spacecraft itself continued on an extended mission to flyby asteroid 2001 CC21 and eventually rendezvous with asteroid 1998 KY26 in 2031.