Last week JAXA had a huge success in safely landin' its Hayabusa craft in Australia. Arrr! But before we go in t' that, me hearties, lets back up and talk a bit about what Hayabusa is and how we got t' this point.On May 9th, 2003 at 4:23 UTC t' Japanese solid fueled rocket M-5 launched from t' Uchinoura Space Center. Aboard was a little spacecraft designed t' do somethin' no other vehicle had done before. It would approach an asteroid, me hearties, hover, take a sample and return t' sample safely t' Earth. Blimey! Hayabusa would nay land but rather touch t' surface with its sample capturin' device and then move away, so we're nay t' call it a lander.Four ion engines kept t' petal t' t' metal for 2 years straight and in 2005 t' craft rendezvoused with t' asteroid Itokawa. That asteriod be actually nay its initial target. Arrr! Originally Hayabusa was supposed t' land on t' asteroid 4660 Nereus, but a faulty M-5 rocket forced a delay which pushed t' asteroid out o' our reach. But that's nay where t' trouble started or ended.Even prior t' t' launch thar were some problems. Avast! T' non-lander was t' deploy a small rover designed by NASA and developed by JPL on t' t' surface o' t' asteroid, but was cancelled due t' budget reasons. Well, blow me down! Minus 2 points US. Then in 2002 JAXA needed t' re-check t' O-rings o' their rocket as it was found t' be made o' a different material than was specified, shiver me timbers, and thus t' launch was pushed t' launch back t' 2003. Finally after it did take off t' Hayabusa spacecraft got slammed with a ...