Hayabusa
JAXA's pathfinding asteroid sample-return mission — the first spacecraft to land on an asteroid and return material to Earth. Despite a cascade of failures (reaction wheels, a fuel leak, an intermittent ion engine, and a lost lander), it recovered more than a thousand microscopic grains of the asteroid Itokawa.
Imagery
Space Symposium - JAXA Bi-lateral Meeting
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine speaks with Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) President, Hiroshi Yamakawa, about opportunities to work together in human and robotic exploration at the lunar surface and around…
2019
NASA · NASA media (public domain)
This is the small-body-missions view of Hayabusa. See its main mission page for the full profile.
Targets & sample
Mission & science
- Goals
- Demonstrate the technologies for asteroid rendezvous, surface sampling, and return: ion propulsion, autonomous navigation, and a reentry capsule.
- Engineering milestones
- First asteroid landing and ascent (2005); first recovery of asteroid surface material (2010).
- Science discoveries
- Confirmed that Itokawa is a rubble-pile asteroid; its returned grains linked LL chondrite meteorites to S-type asteroids.
- Sample return
- More than 1,500 grains (sub-milligram total), recovered at Woomera, Australia, in June 2010.
- Outcome
- Success against the odds — the first asteroid sample return.
Knowledge connections
- Operated byJAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency)
- Part of programHayabusa program
- Mission target25143 Itokawa
- Visited25143 Itokawa
- Returned samples from25143 Itokawa
- Member of groupSample-Return Mission
- Member of groupRendezvous Mission
- Member of groupLander Mission
- Landed on25143 Itokawa
- Collected sampleItokawa Sample (Hayabusa)
- Mission includesHayabusa Sample-Return Capsule
- Associated withReturn & Reentry
- Tracked byJAXA Deep Space Network
- Associated withHayabusa Samples Asteroid Itokawa
- Associated withFirst Asteroid Sample Return
Sources
The primary and reference sources this topic draws on.
- JAXAJapan Aerospace Exploration Agency
Japanese missions (Hayabusa, Akatsuki) and space science.
- NASANational Aeronautics and Space Administration
Mission data, planetary science, space telescopes, and public-domain imagery.
Most NASA-produced imagery is in the public domain; individual items are checked for usage terms before publication.
- NASA JPLJet Propulsion Laboratory / Solar System Dynamics
Orbital data, ephemerides, and small-body parameters for planets, asteroids, and comets.