September 28, 2018

Hayabusa2 Spacecraft

The main characteristics of the Hayabusa2 spacecraft are as follows:

  • Mass: 600 kg at launch for 500 kg of dry mass,
  • Size of the structure: 1.0 m x 1.6 m x 1.2 m
  • Energy: 2 solar panels (power 2.6 kW at 1 AU), batteries Li-ion
  • Propulsion: ion engine with xenon propellant (for the big cruise manoeuvres (4 x 28 mN thrusters with a specific impulse of 2800 s producing 2 km/s in total) and hydrazine for the cruise correction manoeuvres and the asteroid/Earth proximity manoeuvres (12 x 20 N thrusters)
  • Attitude control, 4 reaction wheels, 2 Star Trackers, 2 inertial reference units, 4 accelerometers, 4 sun sensors
  • Navigation sensors for the asteroid proximity operations: optical cameras, LIDAR (from 20 km to 100 m altitude), Target Marker (TM), ONC-W1 and Flash Lamp (FLASH) (from 100 m to 30 m altitude) and Laser Range Finder (LRF) (from 30 m to 5 m altitude)
  • TM/TC : 2 high gain antennas (X&KU band) and 1 medium gain antenna

Location of the different sub-systems on Hayabusa 2 probeLocation of the different sub-systems on Hayabusa 2 probe
Location of the different sub-systems on the Hayabusa2 probe

The Hayabusa2 payload is presented in the table below:

PayloadCharacteristics
Multiband imager (ONC-T, ONC-W1&ONC-W2)Wavelenght: 0.4 - 1.0 µm,
FOV: 5.7 deg x 5.7 deg 1 MPixel for Telescopic Camera
FOV : 57 deg x 57 deg 1 MPixel for Wide Cameras
5 filters (Heritage of Hayabusa 1)
Near IR Spectrometer (NIRS3)Wavelength: 1.7 - 3.4 µm, FOV: 0.1 deg x 0.1 deg
(Heritage of Hayabusa 1, but 3 µm range is new)
Thermal IR Imager (TIR)Wavelength: 7 - 14 µm, FOV: 12 deg x 16 deg, Pixel Number: 320 x 240 px (Heritage of Akatsuki)
Laser Altimeter (LIDAR)Measurement Range: 50 m - 50 km (Heritage of Hayabusa 1)
Sampler Horn (SMP)Minor modifications from Hayabusa 1
(Heritage of Hayabusa 1)
Small Carry-on Impactor (SCI)Small, deployed system to form an artificial crater on the surface (New)
Separation Camera (DCAM)Small, deployed camera to watch operation of Small Carry-on Impactor (Heritage of Ikaros)
Re-entry Capsule (CPSL)Heritage of Hayabusa 1
Small Rover (MINERVA II-A1/A2/B)Almost the same as MINERVA of Hayabusa 1
(possible payload: Cameras, thermometers)
(Heritage of Hayabusa 1)
MASCOTSupplied by DLR/CNES
MicrOmega, MAG, CAM, MARA

Except for MASCOT and the impactor, the payload is highly inherited from Hayabusa 1 or other Japanese missions.
The impactor should form a 2-meter diameter crater enabling to take samples which are not from the surface.

Hayabusa2 should collect three samples: one sample by the end of 2018 and two samples during the first half of 2019.