Scientists from the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and from NASA and the ANU are in Woomera to recover the capsule which they hope will provide important scientific clues about the composition of the asteroid, Itokawa. The spacecraft was launched by the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) in May 2003 and landed on the asteroid in November 2005. If successful, it will be the first time that a spacecraft has landed on an asteroid and returned to Earth.

Updates on the mission can be found here: http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2010/06/20100612_hayabusa_e.html

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 13th, 2010 at 1:37 pm and is filed under Aerospace, Astronomy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.