Hayabusa will be the first sample return mission by Japan's space science agency, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The goal of the mission is to return powdered or chipped samples from the surface of a small near-Earth asteroid, Itokawa. The spacecraft launched in May, 2002, and rendezvoused with the asteroid in 2005. Once in the asteroid's orbit, the spacecraft collected samples from the asteroid's surface. The spacecraft will return to Earth in 2010.

Hayabusa Sample Curation

The Hayabusa Mission