The Hayabusa2 lander MASCOT on the surface of Asteroid (162173) Ryugu -- Stereo-photogrammetric analysis of MASCam image data

Abstract

After its release and a descent and bouncing phase, the Hayabusa2 lander MASCOT came to a final rest and MASCOT's cameraMASCam acquired a set of images of the surface of Ryugu. With MASCam's instantaneous field of view of about 1 mrad, the imagesprovide pixel scales from 0.2 to 0.5 mm/pixel in the foreground and up to 1 cm/pixel for surface parts in the background. Using astereo-photogrammetric analysis of the MASCam images taken from slightly different positions due to commanded and unintentionalmovements of the MASCOT lander, we were able to determine the orientation for the different measurement positions. Furthermore,we derived a 3D surface model of MASCOT's vicinity. Although the conditions for 3D stereo processing were poor due to very smallstereo angles, the derived 3D model has about 0.5 cm accuracy in the foreground at 20 cm distance and about 1.5 cm at a distance of40-50 cm.