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was a robotic spacecraft developed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) 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, color, composition, density, and history. In November 2005, it landed on the asteroid and collected samples in the form of tiny grains of asteroidal material, which were returned to Earth aboard the spacecraft on 13 June 2010. The spacecraft also carried a detachable minilander, MINERVA, which failed to reach the surface. NASA's Galileo and NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft had visited asteroids before, but the Hayabusa mission was the first one to return an asteroid sample to Earth for analysis. In addition, Hayabusa was the first spacecraft designed to deliberately land on an asteroid and then take off again (NEAR Shoemaker made a controlled descent to the surface of 433 Eros in 2000, but it was not designed as a lander and was eventually deactivated after it arrived). Technically, Hayabusa was not designed to "land"; it simply touches the surface with its sample capturing device and then moves away. However, it was the first craft designed from the outset to make physical contact with the surface of an asteroid. Junichiro Kawaguchi of the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science was appointed to be the leader of the mission. Despite its designer's intention for momentary contact, Hayabusa landed and sat on the asteroid surface for about 30 minutes (see timeline below). The Hayabusa spacecraft was launched on 9 May 2003 at 04:29:25 UTC on an M-V rocket from the Uchinoura Space Center (still called Kagoshima Space Center at that time). Following launch, the spacecraft's name was changed from the original MUSES-C to Hayabusa, the Japanese word for falcon.

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Hayabusa2

is an asteroid sample-return mission operated by the Japanese state space agency JAXA. It is a successor to the Hayabusa mission, which returned asteroid samples for the first time in June 2010. Hayabusa2 was launched on 3 December 2014 and rendezvoused in space with near-Earth asteroid 162173 Ryugu on 27 June 2018. It surveyed the asteroid for a year and a half and took samples. It left the asteroid in November 2019 and returned the samples to Earth on 5 December 2020 UTC.

JAXA

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is the Japanese national air and space agency. Through the merger of three previously independent organizations, JAXA was formed on 1 October 2003. JAXA is responsible for research, technology development and launch of satellites into orbit, and is involved in many more advanced missions such as asteroid exploration and possible human exploration of the Moon. Its motto is One JAXA and its corporate slogan is Explore to Realize (formerly Reaching for the skies, exploring space).

Sample-return mission

A sample-return mission is a spacecraft mission to collect and return samples from an extraterrestrial location to Earth for analysis. Sample-return missions may bring back merely atoms and molecules or a deposit of complex compounds such as loose material and rocks. These samples may be obtained in a number of ways, such as soil and rock excavation or a collector array used for capturing particles of solar wind or cometary debris. Nonetheless, concerns have been raised that the return of such samples to planet Earth may endanger Earth itself.

Gas Sensing with Rotary-Wing Nano Aerial Vehicles

Chiara Ercolani

Harmful chemical compounds are released daily in warehouses, chemical plants and during environmental emergencies. Their uncontrolled dispersion contributes to the pollution of the atmosphere and threatens human and animal lives.When gas leaks occur, their ...

EPFL2024

Influence of Ablation on Vacuum-Ultraviolet Radiation in a Plasma Wind Tunnel Flow

Pénélope Leyland

Plasma wind tunnel experiments have been performed simulating a Hayabusa reentry trajectory point at 78.8km altitude with a velocity of 11.7km/s corresponding to a local mass-specific enthalpy of 68.4MJ/kg and a stagnation pressure of 2.44kPa. Ablation-rad ...

American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics2017

Numerical Simulations of the Apollo 4 Re-entry Trajectory

Ermioni Papadopoulou

Sample return capsules, as the Apollo Command Module have been widely used to ad- vance the knowledge and planning of manned lunar and planetary return missions. Such reentry vehicles undergo extreme thermal conditions, caused by shock-heated air during th ...

2014

Covers the Ayabusa mission, focusing on sample collection from asteroid Itokawa.

Explores the history, challenges, and future of space exploration, including human spaceflight incidents and significant missions.

Explores gravitational forces, density calculations, and swing mechanics.