Asteroid capsule recovered as Hayabusa craft ends mission in fireball

A Japanese space capsule that may contain asteroid dust has been recovered from the Australian Outbreak, hours after its parent craft ended a seven-year mission in a spectacular fireball.

The Hayabusa explorer returned overnight after a 4-billion mile journey that saw it become the first spacecraft to successfully land on an asteroid and return to Earth. It jettisoned the capsule just before burning up.

"It'll be some time before we know if we've got sample, and if so, how much — I don't think we can assume anything," NASA scientist Scott Sandford told the Associated Press from the scientists' base in Woomera.

Hayabusa was launched in 2003, reached the 1,640-foot-long asteroid Itokawa in 2005, took photos from all angles and then landed on it twice in late 2005.

AP explains the mission:

The craft was designed to shoot a bullet into the surface of the asteroid that would crush and propel material through a long tube into a sample collection container. There is no certainty the bullet actually fired, scientists say, but they believe the impact of the tube's landing would have forced some material upward and into the collection chamber.

"We have perhaps a 50 percent chance" of retrieving samples, said Seiichi Sakamoto of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, which launched the explorer.

The Australian Broadcasting Corp. (the other ABC) has more about the late-night celestial light show.

(Posted by Michael Winter)