February 2-6, 2011
From February 2 (Wednesday) to February 6 (Sunday), the Kyoto University Museum held a special exhibition on the Hayabusa space capsule, which returned from its exploration of asteroid Itokawa. On display at the exhibition were seven items, including the actual onboard electronic system, parachute, and a scaled model of the asteroid explorer. On February 3 and 4, after attending a special class on Hayabusa, 3,038 elementary through high school students from 52 schools in Kyoto Prefecture saw the exhibition.
On February 5, the "Space Ark" workshop was held for elementary and secondary school students.
On the same day, the number of visitors to the Hayabusa exhibition, which began on February 2, exceeded 10,000 people. The 10,000th visitor was Ms. Yuki Matsuda with her two children from Nagaokakyo City. This family was very pleased with the unexpected commemorative gift given by the organizers -- Terufumi Ohno (director of the Kyoto University Museum) and Fumiho Miyano (assistant general manager of the Department of Guidance, Kyoto Prefectural Board of Education).
On February 6, students from Kyoto Prefectural Sagano Senior High School and Kyoto Municipal Horikawa Senior High School gave a presentation entitled "Hayabusa's Miracle in the Eyes of High School Students," an easy-to-understand introduction to Hayabusa and Itokawa.
On the same day, the Kyoto Hayabusa symposium with 520 participants was held at the Clock Tower Centennial Hall. At the symposium, Dr. Hiroshi Yamakawa, a professor at the Research Institute for Sustainable Humanosphere, and Dr. Akira Fujiwara, a former professor at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, lectured on "The Past and Future Paths of the Explorer Hayabusa" and "The Asteroid Science Explored by Hayabusa," respectively, which were followed by a panel discussion entitled "Hayabusa and Space."
From February 2 to 6, the exhibition was visited by a total of 16,809 visitors (an average of about 3,400 people per day), some of whom left comments such as "The exhibition was well-explained," "The presentations by high school students were easy to understand," and "I was happy to get close to Hayabusa, the great achiever."
 Easy-to-understand explanation at a Q & A corner |  The Matsuda family was the 10,000th visitor |
 Exhibition room full of enthralled children |  Panel presentation by high school students |