Hayabusa
- id: PRB-013
- launch_year: 2003
- launch_date: 2003-05-09
- operated_by: JAXA
- visited: 25143 Itokawa
- status: completed
- confidence: believed-correct
- sources: NASA NSSDCA Master Catalog, JAXA missions
Hayabusa ("peregrine falcon") launched on 9 May 2003, developed by Japan's Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, which became part of JAXA later that year. In September 2005 it arrived at the small near-Earth asteroid 25143 Itokawa, photographed its rubble-pile surface in detail, and touched down to collect samples.
The mission survived a cascade of failures — reaction wheels lost, thrusters leaking, communications dropping out — yet its team coaxed the crippled spacecraft home. On 13 June 2010 the sample capsule landed in the Australian outback, delivering the first samples ever returned from an asteroid and turning the mission into a national epic in Japan.