2006 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
Research for the target asteroids of next asteroid sample-return mission
| Project/Area Number |
17340133
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
Solid earth and planetary physics
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| Research Institution | Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency |
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Principal Investigator |
ABE Masanao Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Department of Planetary Science, Assistant Professor (00270439)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
KAWAKATSU Yasuhiro Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Department of Space System Engineering, Assistant Professor (80373439)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2005 – 2006
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| Keywords | Planetary exploration / Astronomy / Aerospace engineering / Solid geophysics / Space science |
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| Research Abstract |
At present, examinations of the explorations for small solar system bodies, which are following the "Hayabusa" mission, are advanced.
In the next small bodies exploration, we are planning to explore more primitive bodies than S-type asteroids which were investigated by "Hayabusa" mission.
In specially, C-type asteroids are considered as the targets and it is necessary to detect many primitive type asteroids in the near-Earth-asteroids with which a spacecraft reaches easily.
In this research, at first, we created the list of near-Erath-asteroid with which a spacecraft reaches easily.
As for each listed asteroid, we investigated its observing opportunity. And then, colorimetric observations were conducted for the asteroid which have observing opportunity to estimate the taxonomic type of these asteroids.
Observation uses the 1.05-m Schmidt telescope of the University of Tokyo Kiso observatory, and the 1-m telescope of the Taiwan Lulin astronomical observatory.
30 asteroids were observed in thr
… More
ee years until now, and it has succeeded in estimating the taxonomic type for 20 asteroids. Five were C-type asteroids among these.
Although the number of the C-type asteroids which a spacecraft reach easily was only seven before our research, total number of the C-type asteroids becomes 15 including the result of our research and the observation result of other researcher at present.
This number is mostly in agreement with. the prediction before starting this research.
As the result of increasing the number of C-type asteroids which are easy to investigate by spacecrafts, the design flexibility of an exploration plan goes up and the feasibility of the mission is improving.
Based on these results, 1999JU3 which is C-type asteroid is chosen as a leading candidate for the "Hayabusa 2" missions in which the spacecraft will be launched in early 2010s.
In this research, the concrete orbital plan of the spacecraft in the case of exploring 1999JU3 was considered. According to this investigation, it was shown clearly that we can explore this asteroid using the spacecraft designed comparable as the "Hayabusa" spacecraft. Less
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