Four Mars missions are launching next year

Four Mars missions are launching next year

Hayabusa2 successfully dropped another target marker in anticipation of a second sample collection. With the marker now in place, the (hopefully) next step will be descending to collect a sample of Ryugu’s subsurface material from the region near where Hayabusa2’s copper impactor (fun test video) created an artificial crater in April. This must happen by the end of the month since Hayabusa2 is almost out of time—the surface of Ryugu will soon become too hot for a collection attempt as the asteroid approaches perihelion.

Source: orbitalindex.com