Japan’s asteroid mission Hayabusa2 has successfully dispatched its first two rovers to the surface of its target space rock Ryugu .

As the craft dropped to a lowest altitude of just 55 metres from the surface, it released twin rovers, called MINERVA-II 1A and 1B, before pulling up to a higher orbit.

Mission controllers at Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency have yet to confirm whether the two craft landed safely. Communication with the rovers stopped in the hours after deployment, but the team said that this was probably because the landers are currently on the far side of the asteroid, as seen from the orbiter.

Cameras on the hexagonal rovers will use rotating motors to hop across the surface, each jump lasting some 15 minutes owing to the body’s low gravity.

The landers are designed to take images of the asteroid and their sensors will measure its temperature.

Before it leaves Ryugu next year, the Hayabusa2 mothership will release two more landers and, in late October, touch the surface itself to collect a sample to bring back to Earth.

Scientists hope that studying the 1-kilometre-wide-asteroid, which is made up of primitive material from the early Solar System, will help them to understand the origins and evolution of Earth and other planets.