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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.

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)