Hayabusa returned the first samples from an asteroid to Earth in 2010.
Japan’s JAXA launched Hayabusa in 2003 toward the near-Earth asteroid 25143 Itokawa. The spacecraft reached Itokawa in 2005 and attempted to collect surface material during brief contact operations. Despite technical problems, its sample-return capsule landed in Australia on 13 June 2010.
Scientists later confirmed that the capsule contained microscopic particles from Itokawa. The mission demonstrated that a spacecraft could travel to a small, irregular body, navigate close to its weak gravity and bring material home.
Hayabusa2 was a separate successor mission. It visited the carbon-rich asteroid Ryugu and returned its samples in 2020. NASA’s OSIRIS-REx returned material from asteroid Bennu in 2023, so those missions should not be confused with Hayabusa’s earlier achievement.