PROCYON

PROCYON
Mission type Asteroid flyby, technology demonstration
Operator University of Tokyo / JAXA
COSPAR ID 2014-076D
Website PROCYON on University of Tokyo site
Spacecraft properties
Launch mass Total: 67 kg (148 lb)
Dry mass 64.5 kg (142 lb)
Dimensions 0.55 × 0.55 × 0.67 m (1.8 × 1.8 × 2.2 ft)
Power 25
Start of mission
Launch date 3 December 2014, 04:22 UTC (2014-12-03UTC04:22Z)
Rocket H-IIA 202
Launch site LA-Y, Tanegashima Space Center
Flyby of Earth
Closest approach December 2015
Flyby of yet undecided asteroid
Closest approach to be decided
← Hodoyoshi 4 EQUULEUS →

PROCYON (Proximate Object Close flyby with Optical Navigation) is an asteroid flyby space probe that was launched together with Hayabusa 2 on 4 December 2014 13:22:04 (JST). It was developed by University of Tokyo and JAXA. It is a small (70kg, approx. 60 cm cube), low cost (¥500 million) spacecraft.[1]

It was intended to flyby the asteroid 2000 DP107 in 2016,[2] but the plan was abandoned due to the malfunction of the ion thruster.[1]

Mission overview

PROCYON was launched as secondary payload together with the Hayabusa 2 asteroid landing probe. After separation from the carrier rocket, PROCYON was left on a heliocentric orbit. On February 22, 2015, the ion engine was started, with the intention of adjusting the orbit so that an Earth flyby in December 2015 would direct the probe towards asteroid 2000DP107.[3] Initial results were favourable - the engine delivered 330 µN of thrust rather than the designed 250 µN - but unfortunately the engine failed on March 10 and could not be restarted; PROCYON flew past Earth on December 3, 2015, but was unable to make a controlled orbit change.

The 70 kg spacecraft has a specific impulse of 1000 seconds, for a delta-V budget of about 500ms−1; the intention was to use 20% of the xenon propellant for the initial orbit correction, and the rest of the propellant between the Earth flyby and the asteroid flyby to ensure a controlled flyby distance of 30 km.[4]

A novel subsystem tested by PROCYON involved feeding both the main ion engine and the eight cold-gas attitude control thrusters from the same tank (containing 2.5 kg of xenon at launch)

Instruments

See also

References

  1. 1 2 プロキオン:小惑星への接近観測断念. Mainichi Shimbun. May 8, 2015. Retrieved May 8, 2015.
  2. ↑ 超小型探査機「PROCYON」 二重小惑星を目指して航行中 [Very Small Probe PROCYON Cruising Toward a Binary Asteroid]. Space Elevator News. April 7, 2015. Retrieved April 7, 2015.
  3. ↑ "Low-thrust trajectory design and operations of PROCYON, the first deep-space micro spacecraft" (PDF).
  4. ↑ "50kg- class Deep Space Exploration Technology Demonstration Micro-spacecraft PROCYON". digitalcommons.edu.
  5. ↑ PROCYON development team. 超小型深宇宙探査機 PROCYON（プロキオン） (PDF) (in Japanese). Retrieved May 14, 2015.

External links

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