Hayabusa2 operation for MASCOT delivery to Ryugu surface

Abstract

The asteroid explorer Hayabusa2 was launched by Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) on December 3rd, 2014. The primary mission of the spacecraft is to sample pieces of the asteroid and return it to Earth for more advanced scientific analysis on the Earth. After three-year cruise phase, Hayabusa2 finally arrived at the asteroid Ryugu on June 28, 2018, and mission operations started. Hayabusa2 carries multiple rovers, separates them to land on the asteroid surface. One of these rovers, called MASCOT, was developed under the international cooperation between Deutsches Zentrum für Luft-und Raumfahrt (DLR) and Center National d'études Spatiales (CNES). This rover was planned to be separated to land on the surface of the asteroid and planned to perform several missions on the asteroid surface. In order to support these missions, the mother ship Hayabusa2 was requested to separate this rover at a very low altitude about 50 ​m, and to hover about 3 ​km after separation to achieve a reliable communication link with MASCOT. On October 2–5, 2018, we performed the operation for MASCOT release. In this paper, we introduce the flight results of the entire operation for the MASCOT release.