MASCOT—The Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout Onboard the Hayabusa2 Mission

Tra-Mi Ho , Volodymyr Baturkin , Christian Grimm , Jan Thimo Grundmann , Catherin Hobbie , Eugen Ksenik , Caroline Lange , Kaname Sasaki , Markus Schlotterer , Maria Talapina , Nawarat Termtanasombat , Elisabet Wejmo , Lars Witte , Michael Wrasmann , Guido Wübbels , Johannes Rößler , Christian Ziach , Ross Findlay , Jens Biele , Christian Krause , Stephan Ulamec , Michael Lange , Olaf Mierheim , Roy Lichtenheldt , Maximilian Maier , Josef Reill , Hans-Jürgen Sedlmayr , Pierre Bousquet (1) , Anthony Bellion (1) , Olivier Bompis (1) , Celine Cenac-Morthe (1) , Muriel Deleuze (1) , Stephane Fredon (1) , Eric Jurado (1) , Elisabet Canalias (1) , Ralf Jaumann (2) , Jean-Pierre Bibring , Karl Heinz Glassmeier , David Hercik , Matthias Grott (2) , Luca Celotti , Federico Cordero , Jeffrey Hendrikse , Tatsuaki Okada

1 CNES - Centre National d'Études Spatiales [Toulouse]
2 IAS - Institut d'astrophysique spatiale

On December 3rd, 2014, the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) launched successfully the Hayabusa2 (HY2) spacecraft to its journey to Near Earth asteroid (162173) Ryugu. Aboard this spacecraft is a compact landing package, MASCOT (Mobile Asteroid surface SCOuT), which was developed by the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) in collaboration with the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES). Similar to the famous predecessor mission Hayabusa, Hayabusa2, will also study an asteroid and return samples to Earth. This time, however, the target is a C-type asteroid which is considered to be more primitive than (25143) Itokawa and provide insight into an even earlier stage of our Solar System.

Keywords: Hayabusa2; MASCOT; Surface science package; Asteroid

Domains: Sciences of the Universe [physics]

Tra-Mi Ho, Volodymyr Baturkin, Christian Grimm, Jan Thimo Grundmann, Catherin Hobbie, et al.. MASCOT—The Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout Onboard the Hayabusa2 Mission. Space Science Reviews, 2017, 208, pp.339-374. ⟨10.1007/s11214-016-0251-6⟩. ⟨insu-03744567⟩