Hayabusa2
Hayabusa2 was a Japanese mission that returned about 5.4 grams of rock from the carbon-rich asteroid Ryugu in 2020.
Hayabusa2 was JAXA's successor to Hayabusa, launched in December 2014. It reached the near-Earth asteroid 162173 Ryugu in June 2018, revealing a dark, spinning-top-shaped rubble pile about 900 metres across, strewn with boulders.
The spacecraft deployed small rovers and the MASCOT lander, then made two touchdowns to collect samples. In April 2019 it fired a 2-kilogram copper projectile at the surface to create an artificial crater, and in July 2019 it touched down beside it to gather material from beneath the weathered surface. The capsule landed in Australia on 6 December 2020 carrying about 5.4 grams of rock and dust.
The samples resemble CI chondrites, the most chemically primitive meteorites, but are fresher because they were never exposed to Earth's air and water. They contain clays, carbonates, magnetite and many organic compounds, including amino acids. The spacecraft continues on an extended mission to visit another asteroid around 2031.
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