The Hayabusa missions

The Hayabusa missions, conducted by Japan's space agency JAXA, involved spacecraft designed to visit and study asteroids. The first mission, Hayabusa (2003-2010), traveled to asteroid Itokawa, collected surface samples, and returned them to Earth, providing insights into the building blocks of planets. Hayabusa2 (2014-2020) focused on asteroid Ryugu, capturing detailed images, analyzing surface composition, and retrieving samples for study. These missions advanced our understanding of asteroids’ composition, origins, and potential hazards, while demonstrating the feasibility of future asteroid exploration and resource utilization.