Mascot

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In December 2014, the Japanese probe Hayabusa2 left Earth with MASCOT (Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout), a lander developed by the DLR (German Space Agency) in collaboration with CNES. The mission of this probe: to take samples from 1999 JU3 (Ryugu), a near-Earth asteroid about 920 metres long. Hayabusa2 arrived close to this celestial body during the year 2018. Then, in October 2018, the probe dropped the MASCOT lander, which landed on the surface of the asteroid. Thanks to its four instruments, including MicrOmega, an infrared microscope developed by the IAS (Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale, Orsay) under project management by CNES, MASCOT analysed the asteroid's ground at two different locations. For its part, the Hayabusa2 probe took soil samples that will be brought back to Earth at the end of 2020.