MASCOT aboard Hayabusa2: Status of Landing Preparations

Abstract

MASCOT (’Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout’) is a 10 kg mobile surface science package on-board JAXA’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft, which, by July 2018, will have reached the near-Earth Asteroid (162173) Ryugu. MASCOT has been developed by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in cooperation with the Centre National d’Etudes Spaciales (CNES). The concept of MASCOT is to perform in-situ measurements on the asteroid’s surface and to support the Hayabusa2 mission in the sampling site selection. MASCOT is equipped with 4 scientific instruments: a wide angle camera, an IR spectrometer, a radiometer, and a magnetometer. The data provided by the instruments aboard the Hayabusa2 spacecraft from June till September 2018 will be used to select both, sampling sites for the main spacecraft but also the best landing site for MASCOT. Besides of scientific preferences, the main selection criteria will be illumination (thermal), flight dynamics, visibility from main spacecraft and minimum interference between sampling and landing sites. The landing of MASCOT is scheduled for October 1, 2018. The paper will give an update of the status of MASCOT operations planning and landing site selection, 3 months before the actual landing.