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Hayabusa (MUSES-C)


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The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's (JAXA's) MUSES-C / Hayabusa mission is the first to attempt to land on an asteroid, collect samples, and return them to Earth. It launched on May 9, 2003, onboard an MV-5 rocket, from the Uchinoura Launch Center in Kagoshima, on Kyushu Island, Japan, and headed on a 1-billion kilometer journey to an asteroid named for the "father" of Japan's space program, Hideo Itokawa.

When Hayabusa swung by Earth in May 2004 for a gravity assist, it was sent on its trajectory straight to Itokawa and straight into the space history books as the first spacecraft to perform a flyby maneuver using an ion engine as the main thruster. The 500-kilogram (1,100-pound) spacecraft tested a host of new technologies along the way, surviving two major solar flares en route, one of which slightly degraded the solar panels, causing a delay in arrival. The spacecraft arrived at Itokawa in good shape on September 12, 2005, and the mission logged another milestone by conducting the world's first low-thrust rendezvous with a near-Earth asteroid.

Hayabusa made detailed observations of the asteroid from only a few kilometers away. The mission's attempt to deploy a tiny hopper, Minerva, failed on November 12. Hayabusa attempted two landings in mid-November 2005. During the second of the landing attempts, it sprung a leak in its chemical rocket system, causing a cascade of damage to the spacecraft and loss of communication with Earth; and it is unknown whether the spacecraft successfully collected any dust samples from Itokawa. Controllers reestablished contact with the spacecraft, but the damage forced a delay in Hayabusa's planned return date from 2007 to 2010. Hayabusa may be too damaged to return, but the spacecraft has succeeded in returning surprising data on a tiny near-Earth asteroid, furthering our understanding of a class of objects important to the future of our own planet.

As of June 2008, Hayabusa is still on course to return the sample capsule in 2010.

Hayabusa Basic Facts
Launch date: May 9, 2003 from Uchinoura Launch Center, Kagoshima, Kyushu Island Japan
Launch vehicle: MV-5 rocket (Japan)
Arrival at asteroid: September 12, 2005, at 10:00 a.m., Japanese Standard Time/1 a.m. Universal Time (UT)