MASCOT: FLIGHT DYNAMICS ACTIVITIES IN SUPPORT OF AN ASTEROID LANDING MISSION

MASCOT, the Mobile Asteroid Surface SCOUT, is a small lander jointly developed by the German and French space agencies, that has travelled on board of the JAXA S/C Hayabusa2 for over 3 years to the C-type asteroid called Ryugu. The goal of MASCOT lander was to perform in situ measurements on the surface of the asteroid thanks to its four scientific payloads, participating in a substantial way in the overall scientific return of Hayabusa2 mission. The French contribution to MASCOT includes the batteries, together with the power control and distribution unit, the antennae for communication with the mother S/C, the provision of the infrared spectrometer MicrOmega developed by the Space Astrophysics Institute (IAS, Orsay, France), and finally, the flight dynamics support to all the technical, scientific and operational teams involved in MASCOT mission. The objective of the present paper is to provide an overview of all the flight dynamics activities performed for MASCOT project: from the early mission analysis studies and the preparation of the operational tools, up to the landing site selection process that took place in summer 2018 (after the arrival of Hayabusa2 to the vicinity of Ryugu), and the currently on-going activities of restitution of the real descent trajectory and attitude of MASCOT.