Published on December 7, 2020

Congratulations to IAF Member JAXA for the Hayabusa-2 sample capsule safe landing!

The 16kg capsule and its parachute were collected in Australia.

The IAF is pleased to congratulate JAXA for leading Japan’s Journey to an Asteroid!
The capsule containing the first significant quantities of rock from an asteroid is in "perfect" shape. The container with material from a space rock called Ryugu parachuted down near Woomera in South Australia. The spacecraft spent more than a year investigating Ryugu before returning to Earth. As it approached our planet, Hayabusa-2 released the capsule with the samples and fired its engines to push off in another direction.
IAF Member, JAXA, concluded a six-year, 3.25 billion-mile journey of discovery that aims to shed light on the earliest eons of the solar system and possibly provide clues about the origins of life on Earth.
Congratulations!