A successor asteroid sample-return mission to the first Hayabusa (see muses-c), the spacecraft was launched on 3 December 2014 and reached the near-Earth asteroid Ryugu on 27 June 2018. On 21 September Hayabusa (the name means ‘peregrine falcon’) released two landers from a height of 60 m, both called Minerva-II, which landed safely on the asteroid and began returning images. On 3 October Hayabusa released the lander Mascot (Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout) from a height of 56 m, carrying instruments to measure Ryugu’s mineral composition, temperature, and magnetic properties. Hayabus 2 returned samples to Earth in December 2020.