Asteroid probe return doubtful

The future of a Japanese space probe carrying the world’s first samples from an asteroid was in doubt on Tuesday, after it suffered problems with its chemical thrusters and temporarily lost contact with ground control.

Scientists at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) were triumphant at the weekend when Hayabusa appeared to succeed in landing on Itokawa and scooping up a rock sample after an epic two and a half year voyage.

But the unmanned probe was later found to be suffering a fuel leak from one of its two sets of chemical thrusters and a problem with the other set, which was possibly frozen, JAXA said.