---
title: "Hayabusa 2 Launches Today"
description: "The Japanese space agency, JAXA, has launched the country's second asteroid sample-return mission. Hayabusa 2 blasted off this morning from the Tanegashima Space Centre in Japan"
date: "2014-12-04"
modified: "2015-08-13"
authors:
  - name: "Amber Raynolds"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/amber24"
url: "https://futurism.com/hayabusa-2-launches-today"
categories:
  - "Off-World"
  - "Space"
tags:
  - "space"
---

# Hayabusa 2 Launches Today

![](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/PW-2014-12-032-Hayabusa.jpg>)

- The craft will spend two years travelling to asteroid 1999 JU3, an almost spherical carbon-rich asteroid that is 920 m in diameter and is thought to contain organic matter and hydrated minerals
- The probe will bring back a sample to Earth sometime in 2020
- Hayabusa 2 is a successor to Japan's original Hayabusa craft, which returned with the first-ever samples from an asteroid back in 2010. Weighing almost 600 kg and costing about $250m, Hayabusa 2 will attempt to find out the origin of JU3's organic matter and water, and how these are related to life and ocean water on Earth