Which mission first returned samples from an asteroid to Earth?

Japan’s Hayabusa mission was the first spacecraft to bring back material from an asteroid. It sampled asteroid 25143 Itokawa and returned a capsule to Earth in June 2010. The mission overcame major technical setbacks, including propulsion and communication problems, making the achievement even more remarkable. Its tiny grains of asteroid material gave scientists direct evidence about the early Solar System. The later Hayabusa2 mission expanded this work by sampling asteroid Ryugu.