Hayabusa

Mission Profile

Hayabusa (MUSES-C) was JAXA's pioneering asteroid sample return mission, launched on 9 May 2003 aboard an M-V rocket to rendezvous with near-Earth asteroid 25143 Itokawa. After navigating to Itokawa and attempting to collect surface material using a novel touch-and-go mechanism, the spacecraft overcame a series of system failures to return a capsule to Earth on 13 June 2010 — the first time asteroid surface material was confirmed returned to Earth. Analysis of the 1,500 grain sample revealed Itokawa is a rubble-pile asteroid composed of multiple material types, fundamentally advancing planetary science. Hayabusa's success led directly to the Hayabusa2 mission to asteroid Ryugu, which returned a much larger and pristine sample in 2020.