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The primary accurate cold of the Hayabusa (formerly Muses-C) mission was to aggregate a apparent sample of actual from an asteroid (25143 Itokawa/1998 SF36) and acknowledgment the sample to Earth for analysis. It was aswell a technology affirmation mission. Other accurate objectives of the mission cover abundant studies of the asteroid's shape, circuit state, topography, color, composition, density, photometric and polarimetric properties, autogenous and history.
Following launch, the aboriginal name Muses-C was afflicted to Hayabusa (the Japanese chat for falcon) and the aircraft was put into a alteration apogee to accompany it to asteroid 25143 Itokawa (1998 SF36), a 0.3 x 0.7 km near-Earth object. The ion engines were auspiciously test-fired starting on 27 May to the average of June. Rendezvous with the asteroid was to action in June 2005. The aircraft was not go into apogee about the asteroid, but abide in a station-keeping heliocentric apogee abutting by.
Hayabusa was to initially analysis the asteroid apparent for about three months from a ambit of about 20 km. Following this the aircraft was to move abutting to the apparent for a alternation of bendable landings and accumulating of samples at three sites. On-board optical aeronautics was to be active abundantly during this aeon because the continued advice adjournment prohibits ground-based real-time commanding. The samples, with a absolute accumulation of about one gram, were to be captivated central a abstracted re-entry capsule. (A baby NASA departer was annulled by NASA due to account constraints.)