MASCOT the asteroid lander is ready for its launch on November 30th

Dear readers and followers,

While Philae sleeps on the comet 67P, the spacecraft MASCOT (Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout) is ready for its launch on 30 November 2014. MASCOT is an asteroid lander developed by +DLR, German Aerospace Center, the Japan space agency +JAXA | 宇宙航空研究開発機構 and the French space agency, +CNES. 

In 2018 the Japanese Hayabusa 2 Mission will feature an asteroid landing and will, for the first time, allow for data acquisition at various points of this kind of celestial body, assisted by MASCOT , the hopping landing craft developed by the German Aerospace Center.  

Credit image: +DLR, German Aerospace Center

The plan is to send the orbiter to its destination in 2014. Upon arrival in 2018, the spacecraft will initially remain in orbit to scout the unknown terrain. A stable, yet extremely light cover will protect the shoe box-sized lander as it falls to the asteroid’s surface. The four instruments designed to conduct in situ measurements on the asteroid are located inside the DLR landing craft:

• the infrared spectrometer that will analyse the surface composition
• magnetometer to investigate the magnetic field
• a wide-angle camera to record the landing site and the fine structure of the soil
• a radiometer that will measure surface temperatures, among other things.

Once the initial measurements are complete, MASCOT will hop to the next measurement site, providing scientists with data from different positions on asteroid on 1999 JU 3, gathered over two asteroid days and nights. During its mission, the landing craft will be monitored from the DLR Microgravity User Support Center (MUSC).

Credit image: +JAXA | 宇宙航空研究開発機構 

1999 JU3 is an Apollo asteroid. The asteroid was discovered in 1999 by the LINEAR project. The Apollo asteroids are a group of near-Earth asteroids named after 1862 Apollo, the first asteroid of this group which was discovered by Karl Wilhelm Reinmuth. 

Source: +CNES

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Counting down before the landing of Rosetta mission on the comet

Dear readers and followers,

After a 10 year journey of some seven billion kilometres, the Rosetta mission is now heading towards its next major milestone : setting the lander Philae on a comet. Rosetta is a robotic space probe built and launched by the +European Space Agency, ESA to perform a detailed study of comet called 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko with both an orbiter and lander module (Philae).

On November 12th 2014, a lander is scheduled to touch down on a comet for the first time in the history of spaceflight. “We don’t know exactly what awaits us there,” says lander Project Manager Stephan Ulamec from the +DLR, German Aerospace Center .

Philae’s landing site, currently known as Site J, is located on the smaller of the comet’s two ‘lobes’, with a backup site on the larger lobe. The sites were selected just six weeks after Rosetta arrived at the comet on August 6th, following its 10-year journey through the Solar System. Site J was chosen unanimously over four other candidate sites as the primary landing site because the majority of terrain within a square kilometre area has slopes of less than 30º relative to the local vertical and because there are relatively few large boulders.

Credit image: +European Space Agency, ESA 

Landing on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko will enable scientists to carry out experiments in situ for the first time. Comets are considered to be witnesses to the birth of the Solar System. Will the surface of the comet be in a primordial state? Do comets show evidence of prebiotic molecules and water, and did they therefore play a role in the origin of life on Earth? The Rosetta mission is expected to help answer such questions.

  Credit video: +DLR, German Aerospace Center 

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Source: +DLR, German Aerospace Center


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