Mission Analysis for the EM-1 CubeSats EQUULEUS and OMOTENASHI
2019
EQUULEUS is a Lunar L2 orbiter and a 6-Unit
CubeSatby JAXA and the University of Tokyo. OMOTENASHI is a 6-Unit
CubeSatby JAXA, the world's smallest
Lunar lander. EQUULEUS and OMOTENASHI are among the 13 secondary payloads selected by NASA to be launched with Exploration Mission-1 in 2019. Despite their limited size and cost, EQUULEUS and OMOTENASHI are challenging missions, especially in terms of trajectory design and control. EQUULEUS exploits the Earth–Sun–Moon chaotic dynamics and enters a
librationpoint orbit around the L2 of the Earth–Moon system, using a new water propulsion system with low thrust and little propellant. This “Orbit Control Experiment” is one of the main objectives of the mission. OMOTENASHI executes a semihard landing that requires breaking the spacecraft to a stop just a few hundred meters above the Moon's surface. Both missions present new and unique challenges, where the design of the nominal trajectory is mainly driven by the constraints on orbital control capabilities, and operational and robustness considerations. This paper presents the current notional trajectories, and gives an overview of the new techniques developed for their design.
Keywords:
-
Correction
-
Source
-
Cite
-
Save
10
References
4
Citations
NaN
KQI