Asteroid Explorer Hayabusa Returns

Source: http://www.google.com/logos/hayabusa10-hp.gif

Hayabusa (はやぶさ?, literally "peregrine falcon") was an unmanned spacecraft developed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency to return a sample of material from a small near-Earth asteroid named 25143 Itokawa to Earth for further analysis.

Hayabusa, formerly known as MUSES-C for Mu Space Engineering Spacecraft C, was launched on 9 May 2003 and rendezvoused with Itokawa in mid-September 2005. After arriving at Itokawa, Hayabusa studied the asteroid's shape, spin, topography, colour, composition, density, and history. In November 2005, it landed on the asteroid and attempted to collect samples but it is not clear whether the sampling mechanism worked as intended. Nevertheless, there is a high probability that some dust was trapped in the sampling chamber during contact with the asteroid, so the chamber was sealed, and the spacecraft returned to Earth on 13 June 2010.

The spacecraft also carried a detachable minilander, MINERVA, but this failed to reach the surface. [Read more on Wikipedia]