Mascot: Analyses of the Descent and Bouncing Trajectories to Support the Landing Site Selection

Kurzfassung

The Japanese mission Hayabusa-2 has been launched in December 2014 towards the near Earth asteroid 1999JU3, also called Ryugu. This carbonaceous asteroid considered to conceal unchanged traces of the Solar System’s origin will be reached by the JAXA space probe in 2018. As done by its predecessor for the asteroid Itokawa a few years ago, Hayabusa-2 will observe Ryugu during several months and perform a touchdown to gather samples before returning them to Earth. In addition to the three Japanese micro-landers MINERVA taken on board, the probe carries the German-French lander Mascot (Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout). This shoe-box sized spacecraft of 10 kg is equipped with four scientific instruments aiming at improving the knowledge of mineralogical, geological, magnetic and thermal characteristics of Ryugu. It has no propulsive system and is planned to land onto Ryugu’s surface by the end of 2018 after a passive descent from an altitude of a few tenths of meters.