MUSES-C Mission
 | Artist's
concept of Muses-C spacecraft, flying down toward the asteroid
Courtesy
ISAS |
The primary scientific objective
of the MUSES-C mission is to collect a surface sample
of material from an asteroid
and return it to Earth for analysis. MUSES stands for a
series of missions
performed by the space engineering spacecraft launched by MU rocket and C means
the third mission of this series.
The MUSES-C spacecraft
aboard the M-V launch rocket is scheduled to be boosted up
into space in November-December
this year from Kagoshima Space Center of the Institute of Space and Astronautical
science, located in Uchinoura, Kagoshima, the ‚“outhermost prefecture ofMainland
Japan.
The Muses-C spacecraft will arrive at Asteroid
1998SF36 in the middle of 2005. The spacecraft will survey the asteroid surface
for three months from an altitude of about 20km. Then it will start flying down
close to the asteroid for collecting surface samples via autonomous navigation
by combined operation of its optical navigation camera, light radio detecting
and ranging, laser range finders and beam sensors.
A
target marker will be released before it begins sample
collection. Retrieved samples will be stored inside a re-entry capsule, 40cm in
diameter and 25cm in height, via a meter-long horn-shaped collector, protruding
from the bottom of the spacecraft's main body.
The
spacecraft will fire its engine to cruise back to Earth around the end of 2005.
The sample return capsule will be separated from the spacecraft at a distance
of about 400,000km from Earth and re-enter the Earth's atmosphere in June 2007.
When it survives a re-entry phase, the capsule will deploy a parachute to softland
on the ground.
Courtesy
ISAS
The spacecraft has a 1.5 m x 1.5m x 1.2m box-shaped
main body with launch mass of about 500kg and on-orbit dry mass of about 272kg.
Along with its scientific survey, the MUSES-C mission is launched for verifying
major cutting-edge engineering technologies; electric propulsion by ion engines,
autonomous navigation of a spacecraft, sampling of material under an asteroid's
extremely low gravity environment and re-entry into Earth's atmosphere.
You
can get to know of details of Muses-C Mission via http://www.isas.ac.jp
