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Japan cancels asteroid landing rehearsal

Japan has canceled the rehearsal of a planned landing on an asteroid millions of miles away between Earth and Mars.
Japan's Hayabusa probe took this detailed image of Itokawa during a flyby around the asteroid. This view is of the asteroid's southern hemisphere.
Japan's Hayabusa probe took this detailed image of Itokawa during a flyby around the asteroid. This view is of the asteroid's southern hemisphere.JAXA
/ Source: The Associated Press

Japan has canceled the rehearsal of a planned landing on an asteroid millions of miles away between Earth and Mars, but has not ruled out collecting samples from the asteroid's surface later this month, the country's space agency said Friday.

The Hayabusa probe, launched in May 2003, was to make a brief landing to retrieve surface samples from the asteroid, after hovering around it for three months. JAXA, the Japanese space agency, did not elaborate on the mechanical failure that scuttled the rehearsal.

The asteroid, about 180 million miles away, is only 2,300 feet long and 1,000 feet wide. It is known as Itokawa, named after Hideo Itokawa, the father of rocket science in Japan.

JAXA officials have said Hayabusa was to be the world's first two-way trip to an asteroid. A NASA probe collected data for two weeks from the surface of the Manhattan-sized asteroid Eros in 2001, but it did not return with physical samples.

Despite a glitch with one of Hayabusa's three gyroscopes, the mission had been largely mishap-free. The probe is set to return to Earth and land in the Australian outback in June 2007.

Japan was the fourth country to launch a satellite, in 1972, and announced earlier this year a major project to send its first astronauts into space and set up a base on the moon by 2025.