Entry dispersion analysis for the HAYABUSA spacecraft using ground-based optical observation

Abstract

The HAYABUSA asteroid explorer successfully released its sample capsule to Australia on 2010 June 13. Since the Earth reentry phase of sample return was critical, many backup plans for predicting the landing location were prepared. This paper considers the reentry dispersion using ground-based optical observation as a backup observation for radiometric observation. Several scenarios were calculated and compared for the reentry phase of HAYABUSA to evaluate the navigation accuracy of the ground-based observation. The optical observation doesn't require any active reaction from a spacecraft, and thus these results show that optical observations could be a steady backup strategy even if a spacecraft had some trouble. We also evaluated the landing dispersion of HAYABUSA only with optical observation.