Goals: Hiten was to fly by the Moon and release its subsatellite, Hagoromo, in a test of the swingby technique for entering lunar orbit. It was also to demonstrate aerobraking and gravity-assist maneuvers and provide data on micrometeorite particles. Its mission was expanded to include flight to the L4 and L5 Lagrangian points of the Earth-Moon system, to place Hiten into lunar orbit, and ultimately to crash it into the Moon's surface.

Accomplishments: Contact with Hagoromo was lost before it was possible to confirm whether it entered lunar orbit, but Hiten accomplished its other objectives. In a flyby of Earth, it conducted the first aerobraking maneuver by a deep-space probe. This mission gave Japan the distinction of being the third nation (after the Soviet Union and United States) to achieve a lunar flyby, orbit, and surface impact.