The first results from the Japanese Hayabusa mission have been presented here at the Lunar and Planetary Science conference, and have generally got a warm response. Hayabusa visited the small asteroid Itokawa late last year, and managed to survey the lumpy rock in great detail, despite coping with some major technical problems. [read more here] The Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) mission was largely about testing new spacecraft technology, such as Hayabusa’s xenon gas-powered ion drive. The...