Launch of Hayabusa

Hayabusa was a spacecraft of the Japanese space agency, designed to travel to a small near-Earth asteroid, Itokawa, and bring back samples of its surface. It was a test of new technologies, in particular ion engines that gave it a gentle but continuous push. After reaching the asteroid in 2005, Hayabusa studied its shape and surface, and made landing attempts, though a small hopping probe was lost. The spacecraft suffered engine problems and a communications failure, and its return was delayed by years, but it eventually brought a capsule to Earth in 2010. It contained tiny grains of dust from Itokawa, the first samples from an asteroid. Its success led to the follow-up mission Hayabusa2.

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