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http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0508/22hayabusa/
Flies by ion engine to asteroid Itokawa, images it at one-metre resolution with IR and X-ray spectroscopy, deploys a small hopping rover, makes three passes in which it touches down a funnel and fires in a bullet, collecting debris in a capsule; returns the capsule by parachute to the middle of the Australian outback June-after-next.
It's an actually plausible asteroid prospector, it's about to rendezvous with the asteroid, it's Japanese, and the first I heard of it was this evening.
Flies by ion engine to asteroid Itokawa, images it at one-metre resolution with IR and X-ray spectroscopy, deploys a small hopping rover, makes three passes in which it touches down a funnel and fires in a bullet, collecting debris in a capsule; returns the capsule by parachute to the middle of the Australian outback June-after-next.
It's an actually plausible asteroid prospector, it's about to rendezvous with the asteroid, it's Japanese, and the first I heard of it was this evening.
