Armed with a high-speed explosive bullet and powered by an ion engine, a Japanese space explorer blasted off Wednesday on a six-year hunt for an asteroid. Launched by the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Hayabusa2 detached from its space rocket at 1:09 a.m. EST Wednesday morning and will rendezvous with its target, asteroid 1999 JU3, in 2018. After excavating the space rock’s surface for 18 months, the predator probe will return with its expected bounty—organic materials believed to be the building blocks of the solar system–in 2020, according to the AP.

The spacecraft is a beefed-up version of its predecessor, Hayabusa, which returned the first-ever pristine samples of an asteroid in 2010. Hayabusa was intended to bring back large chunks of asteroid 25143 Itokawa, according to Vox, but due to mechanical failures and the asteroid's terrain, it only managed to grab a few microscopic dust particles. With Hayabusa2, JAXA decided to up its chances for a successful haul by sending the probe to an asteroid suspected of holding water and organic material. JAXA also fitted the craft with new weaponry: a bullet capable of creating an impact crater. Hayabusa2 will then deploy three rovers and a German and French-made lander called MASCOT into the blast zone, according to Al Jazeera.

“It's going to produce a puff of material, ejecting material out into space, which is going to be collected by this instrument, and part of that cloud is going to be brought back,” said Francisco Diego, from University College London, to Al Jazeera.