The Missions That Built This Ship
Each section of the Yamabiko is dedicated to a legendary JAXA mission. These are real stories — spacecraft that refused to fail, missions that waited years for a second chance. The ship remembers them so your crew never forgets.
🛸 Hayabusa — The One That Refused to Die
Engine failures. A seven-year communication blackout. Fuel leaks that should have ended everything. The original Hayabusa probe limped home across two billion kilometers on a single functioning engine and delivered asteroid samples in 2010. Japan wept when it re-entered atmosphere. The engineering team had never given up.
This mission defines the ship's core philosophy: ganbaru — persevere regardless.
ASTEROID ITOKAWA SAMPLE RETURN Hayabusa Engine Bay — B Deck🌑 Hayabusa 2 — The Perfectionist
Hayabusa 2 did everything its predecessor could not — and then kept going. It deployed multiple rovers onto asteroid Ryugu, fired a copper bullet into the surface, collected subsurface samples, and returned them to Earth in 2020. Rather than retiring, the spacecraft continued on to a second asteroid target. On 5 July 2026 it flew past asteroid Torifune at about 5 km/s, passing roughly 400 m from the surface. JAXA says this is the closest approach to any Solar System body in a flyby mission, and the first time a laser has measured distance to an asteroid during a flyby. A mission that refused to stop at complete.
ASTEROID RYUGU SURFACE IMPACT ASTEROID TORIFUNE Hayabusa Science Lab — C Deck🌕 Kaguya (SELENE) — The Poet
The Kaguya lunar orbiter produced the first HD video footage of Earth rising over the lunar surface — one of the most beautiful things ever recorded in space. Named after the legendary moon princess of Japanese folklore, the mission gave humanity a new way to see its own home.
LUNAR ORBIT HD IMAGING Kaguya Observation Lounge — A Deck☁️ Akatsuki — The Patient One
Akatsuki failed to enter Venus orbit in 2010 when its main engine burned out. The team did not abandon it. They waited five years, used tiny attitude thrusters never designed for orbital insertion, and successfully placed the spacecraft into Venus orbit in 2015. Five years of patience. One second chance.
VENUS ORBIT ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCE Akatsuki Meditation Room — D Deck🌙 SLIM — The Precise One
Japan's Smart Lander for Investigating Moon touched down in January 2024 with pinpoint accuracy — within 100 meters of its target, compared to the usual 10 kilometer error margin. Its main engine failed and it landed inverted. It still completed its primary mission objectives. The most accurate lunar landing in history, executed upside down.
LUNAR LANDING PRECISION NAVIGATION SLIM Navigation Bridge — A Deck🌍 Japanese ISS Legacy — The Bridge Builders
Koichi Wakata became the first Japanese ISS commander in 2014. Akihiko Hoshide led the first Asian spacewalk command in 2021. Soichi Noguchi flew on three missions across three decades. Their legacy is the ship's command philosophy.
INTERNATIONAL LEADERSHIP ISS Heritage Gallery — B Deck🔴 MMX — The Next Echo
The Martian Moons eXploration mission is scheduled to lift off on an H3 rocket from Tanegashima at 04:41 JST on 20 October 2026. Its target is Phobos, the larger of Mars's two moons. MMX will enter Mars orbit in 2027, send down the small Idefix rover (built by Germany and France, and descended from the MASCOT lander that rode on Hayabusa2), land in 2030 using one of two samplers, and bring at least 10 grams of Phobos back to Earth in 2031. It would be the first sample ever returned from a moon of another planet.
It carries the same craft that fills the rest of this page: low-gravity touchdown, sample return, and patience measured in years. The Yamabiko has no compartment for MMX yet. It has not left the ground. When it does come home, the ship will have a place waiting.
Read the full MMX mission explainer
PHOBOS SAMPLE RETURN IN DEVELOPMENT Future Wing — compartment unassignedExplore the Ship
See where these missions live aboard the Yamabiko, and meet the crew who carry their legacy.
The Yamabiko The Crew Full Game Page