Mascot landing on asteroid ryugu: Flight dynamics team contribution to the landing site selection process

Abstract

In July 2018, after 4 years of cruise, the Japanese space probe Hayabusa-2 will reach asteroid Ryugu. Among other passengers, Hayabusa-2 carries a small lander named MASCOT (Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout). This lander was jointly developed by the German aerospace center (DLR) and the French space agency (CNES). Hayabusa-2 will deliver MASCOT at ~60m from the asteroid surface. The lander will fall at the surface of asteroid and realize several bounces before immobilization. During the summer 2018, the MASCOT team will proceed to its landing site selection. CNES/Mission Analysis is in charge of providing all flight dynamics data (trajectories, landing spot…) necessary to the selection of the candidate landing sites. After an overview of the mission and landing site selection process, this paper presents the CNES-MA contribution based on the computation of landing trajectories and dispersion analyses.