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Loading contentFor sample-return missions, the journey home and the high-speed atmospheric reentry of the capsule to a recovery site — the phase that delivers the science to Earth.
mission_phase:return-and-reentryDataset membership
Open data
In the graph export: graph.json · graph.jsonld
Planned API: GET /api/v0/entities/mission_phase:return-and-reentry
Scientific entity. See the evidence framework and authority dashboard.
How Return & Reentry connects across Asteria Star — scientific, cultural, and astrological links are kept separate.
The critical interaction with the surface — a touchdown, a landing, a sample-collection manoeuvre, or a deliberate impact.
NASA's sample-return mission that captured dust from the coma of comet Wild 2 and returned it to Earth in 2006, and later flew past Tempel 1 as Stardust-NExT.
Hayabusa was the first mission to return a sample from an asteroid, the near-Earth asteroid Itokawa.
The final approach, when the target grows from a point of light into a resolved world and the spacecraft measures its shape, spin, and gravity to plan operations.
The launch and the long interplanetary cruise to the target, often using gravity assists or ion propulsion to reach a distant small body.
Extended operations close to the body — global mapping, orbiting, and selecting sites for a landing, sampling, or impact.
The critical interaction with the surface — a touchdown, a landing, a sample-collection manoeuvre, or a deliberate impact.
Facts on this topic will be cited from these primary and reference sources.
Mission data, planetary science, space telescopes, and public-domain imagery.
Most NASA-produced imagery is in the public domain; individual items are checked for usage terms before publication.
Japanese missions (Hayabusa, Akatsuki) and space science.