Japan’s ‘Falcon’ Returns After Seven-Year Asteroid Mission - BusinessWeek

A Japanese spacecraft, which may be the first to gather samples from an asteroid, returned to earth last night after a seven-year journey.

Hayabusa, Japanese for “falcon,” re-entered the atmosphere at 10:51 p.m. Tokyo time, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said on its website. A helicopter located the capsule in the Woomera area of Australia an hour later.