Hayabusa2
JAXA's follow-up to Hayabusa — a far more capable mission to the carbonaceous asteroid Ryugu. It deployed rovers and a lander, fired a projectile to make an artificial crater and sample subsurface material, and returned 5.4 grams of pristine, water- and organic-bearing rock. The spacecraft is now on an extended mission to a small fast-rotating asteroid.
Imagery
jsc2021e062383
Scientists in the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science (ARES) Division at NASA’s Johnson Space Center study samples retrieved by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) Hayabusa2 spacecraft and return…
2021
NASA/Johnson · NASA media (public domain)
This is the small-body-missions view of Hayabusa2. See its main mission page for the full profile.
Targets & sample
Mission & science
- Goals
- Return a sample of a carbonaceous (C-type) asteroid, including subsurface material exposed by an impactor.
- Engineering milestones
- Deployed the MASCOT lander and MINERVA-II rovers; the Small Carry-on Impactor made an artificial crater (2019).
- Science discoveries
- Ryugu is a carbon-rich rubble pile; its samples contain water-bearing minerals and amino acids.
- Sample return
- 5.4 g of surface and subsurface material, recovered at Woomera, Australia, in December 2020.
- Outcome
- Complete success; extended to asteroid 1998 KY26.
Knowledge connections
- Operated byJAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency)
- Part of programHayabusa program
- Launched byH-IIA
- Launched fromTanegashima Space Center
- Mission target162173 Ryugu
- Visited162173 Ryugu
- Returned samples from162173 Ryugu
- Member of groupSample-Return Mission
- Member of groupRendezvous Mission
- Member of groupLander Mission
- Member of groupImpactor Mission
- Landed on162173 Ryugu
- Impacted162173 Ryugu
- Collected sampleRyugu Sample (Hayabusa2)
- Mission includesHayabusa2 Sample-Return Capsule
- Associated withProximity Operations
- Associated withSurface Operations & Sampling
- Tracked byJAXA Deep Space Network
- Associated withOSIRIS-REx and Hayabusa2 Sample Asteroids
Sources
The primary and reference sources this topic draws on.
- JAXAJapan Aerospace Exploration Agency
Japanese missions (Hayabusa, Akatsuki) and space science.
- NASANational Aeronautics and Space Administration
Mission data, planetary science, space telescopes, and public-domain imagery.
Most NASA-produced imagery is in the public domain; individual items are checked for usage terms before publication.