JAXA

It was second time lucky for Japan as it successfully launched its first lunar lander on September 6 at 23:42 GMT atop a Mitsubishi Heavy Industries H-IIA rocket from the Tanegashima Space Center 25 miles (40 km) south of Kyushu.

At the Paris Air Show, the space agencies of France, Germany and Japan signed an agreement that will allow a robotic Franco-German rover aboard Japan's Martian Moon eXploration (MMX) mission and land it on the surface of the Martian moon Phobos.

Researchers just can’t seem to keep their hands off the peanut-shaped asteroid Itokawa, and with good reason. Having already revealed some curious mineral quirks, it's now surprised scientists with its salt crystals, hinting at a water-bearing past.

Samples taken from the near-Earth asteroid 162173 Ryugu continue to provide scientists with important insights. The discovery of the nucleobase uracil, a part of RNA, in the samples, hints at the potential beginnings of life on our planet.

A six-year round trip to an asteroid has yielded unprecedented insights into the formation of the solar system. Scientists have analyzed samples returned from asteroid Ryugu, finding a detailed history starting with the oldest material ever found.

Nearly three years after lifting off from French Guiana, the BepiColombo space probe has now set its sights on Mercury for the first time, completing a "flawless" flyby over the weekend and collecting its first images.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency has grand plans when it comes to tackling the growing problem of space junk, and startup Rocket Lab has just been enlisted to get its first efforts off the ground.

The BepiColombo orbiter probe passed within 552 km (343 miles) of Venus as it completed one of nine flybys on its way to Mercury. Shortly after the encounter, the ESA/JAXA mission snapped a picture of Venus at a distance of 1,573 km (977 miles).

Two deep-space probes will make flybys of Venus within 30 hours of each other on their way to the inner reaches of the solar system next week. On August 9, the Solar Orbiter will pass by the planet, followed by the BepiColombo orbiter on August 10.

The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is planning to send a tiny transforming ball-shaped robot to the lunar surface in 2022 to gather data for the development of a future crewed exploration rover.

It's rare that gravel gets scientists so excited, but these are no ordinary rocks. This is the first glimpse of the samples returned to Earth by Hayabusa2 after its 5.24-billion-km round trip to asteroid Ryugu.

The European Space Agency has selected Thales Alenia Space in the UK to lead a study for the planned mission to "ambush" a passing comet. Called Comet Interceptor, the mission represents a new strategy for investigating comets fresh from the Oort cloud.