Asteriod Spacecraft Hayabusa Gets Her Own Interactive Book

In 2003, Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa traveled out to 25143 Itokawa, a small, near Earth asteroid, to retrieve samples ad return them to Earth. The spacecraft achieved its goals, returning in late 2005, gaining the honor of being the first spacecraft to successfully return samples from an asteroid.

Now, yes there's an app. Billed as a "sound novel," or "cinematic digital novel," Hayabusa tells the story of this historic spaceflight, using overly cute Japanese "kawaii" images to tell the story, personifying the spaceship as an adorable little girl. We're not sure why, but what the heck, it's Japanese, and therefore mysterious to us. See trailer below for further proof.

The app contains original background music and is universal, running natively on any iOS device with system 3.0 or later. In the App Store, Hayabusa is $0.99, perhaps a worthwhile price for a record of one of the more interesting recent stories of space flight?