Science operation plan of Phobos and Deimos from the MMX spacecraft

Tomoki Nakamura,Pernelle Bernardi,Stéphane Mary,Patrick Michel,Eric Sawyer,Maria Antonietta Barucci,Takeshi Imamura,Hitoshi Ikeda,Shigeru Imai,Jean-Michel Réess ,Kazunori Ogawa,Hiroki Senshu,Kiyoshi Kuramoto,Naoya Ozaki,Shingo Kameda,Laurence Lorda,Ferran Gonzalez-Franquesa,Hiroki Kusano,T Iwata ,Shoichiro Yokota,Makoto Kunugi,Hiromu Nakagawa,Naoko Ogawa,Elisabet Canalias,Takane Imada,D J Lawrence ,F Merlin ,H Ishida ,Masanori Kobayashi,Simon Tardivel,Nicola Baresi,A Doressoundiram ,Sho Sasaki,Naru Hirata,Yosuke Takeo,H Miyamoto ,Stephan Ulamec,N L Chabot ,Toru Kouyama,Koji Matsumoto,P N Peplowski ,S Fornasier ,Yusuke Oki,Naoki Terada,Hisashi Otake,Yasuyuki Ito,Seiji Mitsuhashi,Koji Wada,Yasuhiro Kawakatsu

doi:10.1186/s40623-021-01546-6

Abstract

The science operations of the spacecraft and remote sensing instruments for the Martian Moon eXploration (MMX) mission are discussed by the mission operation working team. In this paper, we describe the Phobos observations during the first 1.5 years of the spacecraft’s stay around Mars, and the Deimos observations before leaving the Martian system. In the Phobos observation, the spacecraft will be placed in low-altitude quasi-satellite orbits on the equatorial plane of Phobos and will make high-resolution topographic and spectroscopic observations of the Phobos surface from five different altitudes orbits. The spacecraft will also attempt to observe polar regions of Phobos from a three-dimensional quasi-satellite orbit moving out of the equatorial plane of Phobos. From these observations, we will constrain the origin of Phobos and Deimos and select places for landing site candidates for sample collection. For the Deimos observations, the spacecraft will be injected into two resonant orbits and will perform many flybys to observe the surface of Deimos over as large an area as possible.Graphical

Highlights

Introduction The Martian MooneXploration (MMX) mission aims to return samples from Phobos, one of the Martian satellites, and is being developed by the Martian Moon eXploration (MMX) project team organized by JAXA (Kuramoto et al 2021)
The Martian Moon eXploration (MMX) mission aims to return samples from Phobos, one of the Martian satellites, and is being developed by the MMX project team organized by JAXA (Kuramoto et al 2021)
quasi-satellite orbits (QSO)‐M For Quasi Satellite OrbitMedium (QSO-M), OROCHI will observe all latitudes of Phobos simultaneously with the same geometric resolution as MMX near-infrared spectrometer (MIRS) (Fig. 7) and acquire spectral data at the same local time and phase angles as MIRS with a better spatial resolution than that from QSO-H

Summary

Introduction

Introduction The Martian MooneXploration (MMX) mission aims to return samples from Phobos, one of the Martian satellites, and is being developed by the MMX project team organized by JAXA (Kuramoto et al 2021). At the lower the altitude of the QSO, the orbital period of the spacecraft around Phobos becomes shorter, and at the same time, the speed of the spacecraft relative to Phobos’ surface becomes faster (Table 1).

Results

Conclusion