On November 26th, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) announced that the Hayabusa spacecraft has successfully landed on an asteroid once again and has successfully collected samples.
JAXA spokesperson Kiyotaka Yashiro stated that Hayabusa touched down on the asteroid Itokawa within a few minutes, at a location approximately 290 million kilometers away from Earth, before taking off again to transmit data back to the mission control center.
According to him, these developments appear to be very promising. Additionally, the data collection process has gone extremely smoothly. However, the actual success will be confirmed in the coming days, as Japanese scientists complete their analysis of the data transmitted by the spacecraft to Earth.
This marks the second time the Hayabusa spacecraft has landed on the asteroid Itokawa. On Wednesday, November 23rd, JAXA announced the successful first landing on this asteroid.
