Homebound Hayabusa

Hayabusa launched in 2003 to visit the asteroid Itokawa and snatch samples of the space rock so they could be returned to Earth.

But the 950-pound (430-kg) spacecraft has suffered a series of setbacks.

Telemetry has shown it did not fire the projectile device intended to kick up material from Itokawa's surface after it landed. Mission scientists hope that some material managed to enter Hayabusa's sample container despite the glitch.

A fuel leak, power outage and communications drop out beset the probe during its seven-year voyage. Its ion engines have also suffered multiple failures, though JAXA engineers managed to revive some systems and send the probe on a long detour through space in order to return it to Earth.

Hayabusa is currently on track to land in the Australian outback sometime in June, about three years later than its original scheduled return.