Nano Semihard Moon Lander: OMOTENASHI

Abstract

The 6U CubeSat “OMOTENASHI,” which is due to be launched in 2020 by NASA's Space Launch System, will be the world's smallest moon lander. Its main mission is to present the possibility of nanomoon landers to enable distributed multipoint lunar exploration and participation by the commercial sector. The severe mass and size limitations of OMOTENASHI make a soft landing on the surface impossible, so instead a semihard landing scheme has been adopted. That is, a small solid rocket motor will decelerate the spacecraft to around 50 m/s, followed by the use of shock absorption mechanisms for high-speed impact. An ultrasmall telecommunication system (X-band and P-band) has also been developed. The spacecraft will also observe the radiation environment between the Earth and the Moon using commercial portable dosimeters for future manned exploration. This paper describes the mission objectives, the mission sequence, the spacecraft configuration, and the technologies developed for OMOTENASHI.