TOKYO, Japan (Reuters) -- A miniature robot released by a Japanese space probe to a small asteroid circling the sun was lost before it was able to land on the asteroid's surface, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said on Sunday.Minerva, a can-shaped "baby" robot 10 centimeters (3.9 inches) long, had been designed to gather information on the Itokawa asteroid as part of a rehearsal ahead of the unmanned Hayabusa probe's own landing on the asteroid Itokawa, scheduled for November 19.Minerva's landing was to have been the first attempt by Japan to send information-gathering equipment to an astronomic object outside the Earth.Equipped with a camera and thermometers, Minerva was meant to hop around Itokawa and send data such as surface temperatures and images back via Hayabusa, the Kyodo news agency reported.A previous attempt to land Minerva earlier this month was aborted because of technical problems.Itokawa, an asteroid 600 meters (1,970 feet) long that travels on an orbit that takes it between Earth and Mars, is named after Hideo Itokawa, the father of Japan's space exploration program. It is about 290 million kilometers (180 million miles) away from the Earth.Junichiro Kawaguchi, a professor at JAXA, said scientists had miscalculated the best moment to release Minerva, a task made difficult by Hayabusa's changing altitude over the asteroid."It is very disappointing that it did not work out nicely. We found out various things about the asteroid, so we will study the data and hope it will lead to the successful landing of Hayabusa," Kyodo quoted him as saying.Hayabusa, which was fired into space on May 9, 2003, has been hovering over Itokawa for almost two months.The spacecraft is designed to swoop down on the asteroid on two separate occasions and gather samples before returning to Earth.Scientists hope that by studying samples of the asteroid's surface they will be able learn more about the origins of the universe.Copyright 2005 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.