The Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa has several mission goals. One is to test new technologies, including the ion engine. It is also supposed to bring back samples of an asteroid.
After a journey of roughly 2 billion kilometers, the spacecraft reached the asteroid Itokawa in September 2005, and landed in November of that year. However, at that point Hayabusa met with extreme difficulties, including a fuel leak and a loss of attitude control, and its departure from the asteroid was delayed. Hayabusa did begin its journey back to Earth in April 2007, and is scheduled to arrive home in June 2010. A return capsule is scheduled to land in the Australian outback. It is unclear whether the spacecraft successfully collected samples from the asteroid's surface.
