Hayabusa - which means “Falcon” in Japanese - was launched from the Kagoshima Space Centre in Japan on May 9, 2003.
It is an unmanned spacecraft operated by the Japanese Space Exploration Agency (JAXA) that has travelled to the asteroid "Itokawa" landing in Sep 2005. Hayabusa hopefully collected samples from the asteroid although this is unsure, Scientists are awaiting to see if this phase was completed correctly by visual inspection.
At last report From JAXA, Hayabusa was at 1,142,550 km from the earth (Friday 11th @ 0900h). The Hayabusa will release its cargo, a small re-entry pod or sample return capsule, at 40,000 km from the earth. Protected from the high temperature during re-entry with a new version of shielding it will then jetison that shield. It will then slow its decent by parachute to touch down in the WPA.
The capsule is due to arrive close to midnight Sunday the 13th of June and is now due to land in the Woomera protected area (WPA) in Northern South Australia.
Weather permitting the Woomera Observatory and many others will be attempting to capture this moment in history on various media.
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