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was an unmanned 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, colour, 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. == Mission firsts == Other spacecraft, notably ''Galileo'' and ''NEAR Shoemaker'' both sent by NASA, visited asteroids before, but the ''Hayabusa'' mission was the first attempt 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 of a momentary contact, Hayabusa did land and sit on the asteroid surface for about 30 minutes (see timeline below). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Hayabusa」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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