The Hayabusa probe, autonomously piloted due to its enormous distance from Earth and the resulting delay of several seconds, descends onto the asteroid Itokawa to touch it and collect a sample. But things go awry; Japanese engineers on Earth decide to abort the maneuver, the probe enters safe mode, and contact is lost, only to be reestablished hours later. It will later be discovered that the probe has indeed reached the asteroid’s surface, and even remained there for a full thirty minutes! It then departed, positioning itself 100 kilometers away in safe mode, awaiting orders. The sample capture system never activated due to the safe mode. Due to a series of other dramatic events, a second attempt will be impossible, and the probe will seal the few grains of asteroid dust it accidentally collected while on the surface, and return to Earth.
