Target Marker located on Itokawa (1)

On Nov. 26, spacecraft "Hayabusa" challenged the second trial to execute landing on and sampling from the asteroid Itokawa. Hayabusa team confirmed the whole process to have been implemented and it is sure that the team succeeded in sampling materials on the surface of an asteroid for the first time in World History. Detailed data to be sent from Hayabusa will further verify the sampling.


Hayabusa started its last descent phase from the altitude of 1 km above Itokawa by command from Earth around 10:00 p.m. Nov.25 (JST). It was followed by starting the vertical descent from around 6:00 a.m. Nov.26., and, around 6:25 a.m., Sagamihara Deep Space Control Room sent a command to continue the descent.
Hayabusa challenged landing and sampling operation after a hovering phase. Hayabusa team is now sure, through the analysis of telemetry data, that a series of sequence for sampling was successfully done. Hayabusa then flew up to several kilometers altitude with normal solar paddles power, spacecraft attitude, etc.