Landing on small bodies: From the Rosetta Lander to MASCOT and beyond |
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| Institution: | 1. DLR, D-51140 Köln, Cologne 51147, Germany;2. CNES, F-31055 Toulouse, France;3. DLR, D-28359 Bremen, Germany;1. Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics SB RAS, Irkutsk, Russia;2. Research Centre for Astrophysics and Geophysics MAS, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia;3. Irkutsk State Technical University, Irkutsk, Russia;1. Science and Technology on Aerospace Flight Dynamics Laboratory, Beijing 100094, China;2. Beijing Aerospace Control Center, Beijing 100094, China;1. KISS Institute of Practical Robotics, NASA Ames Research Center, building 245, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA;2. Dynamac Corporation, Space Biosciences Division, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA;3. Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Macquarie University, North Ryde, NSW 2109, Australia;4. Department of Space Studies, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, ND 58202, USA;5. SETI Institute, 189 Bernardo Ave., Suite 100 Mountain View, CA 94043, USA;6. Creators Orb Education and Training Consultants, 5 Hann Court, Redwood Park, SA 5097, Australia;7. Casula High School, Myall Rd, Casula, 2170 NSW, Australia;8. Wesley College, The University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia;9. Department of Imaging and Applied Physics, Curtin University, Kent Street, Bentley, WA 6102, Australia;10. NASA Ames Research Center, Space Science & Astrobiology Division, Building 245, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA |
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| Abstract: | Recent planning for science and exploration missions has emphasized the high interest in the close investigation of small bodies in the Solar System. In particular in-situ observations of asteroids and comets play an important role in this field and will contribute substantially to our understanding of the formation and history of the Solar System.The first dedicated comet Lander is Philae, an element of ESA's Rosetta mission to comet 67/P Churyumov–Gerasimenko. Rosetta was launched in 2004. After more than 7 years of cruise (including three Earth and one Mars swing-by as well as two asteroid flybys) the spacecraft has gone into a deep space hibernation in June 2011. When approaching the target comet in early 2014, Rosetta will be re-activated. The cometary nucleus will be characterized remotely to prepare for Lander delivery, currently foreseen for November 2014.The Rosetta Lander was developed and manufactured, similar to a scientific instrument, by a consortium consisting of international partners. Project management is located at DLR in Cologne/Germany, with co-project managers at CNES (France) and ASI (Italy). The scientific lead is at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Science (Lindau, Germany) and the Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale (Paris).Mainly scientific institutes provided the subsystems, instruments and the complete, qualified lander system. Operations are performed in two dedicated centers, the Lander Control Center (LCC) at DLR-MUSC and the Science Operations and Navigation Center (SONC) at CNES. This concept was adopted to reduce overall cost of the project and is foreseen also to be applied for development and operations of future small bodies landers.A mission profiting from experience gained during Philae development and operations is MASCOT, a surface package for the Japanese Hayabusa 2 mission. MASCOT is a small (∼10 kg) mobile device, delivered to the surface of asteroid 1999JU3. There it will operate for about 16 h. During this time a camera, a magnetometer, a thermal monitor and an IR analytical instrument will provide ground truth and thus will even be able to support the selection of possible sampling sites for the main spacecraft.MASCOT is a flexible design that can be adapted to a wide range of missions and possible target bodies. Also the payload is flexible to some extent (with an overall mass in the 3 kg range). For example, the surface package is part of the optional strawman payload for MarcoPolo-R, a European asteroid sample return mission, proposed for ESA Cosmic Vision M-class. |
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