Sampling System and Its Operation Scenario for the Jupiter Trojan Asteroid Explorer

Abstract

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency is now planning a Jupiter Trojan asteroid exploration mission using a 40 m-wide solar power sail spacecraft. In this mission, a 100 kg lander is soft-landed on an asteroid in order to perform in-situ analysis of asteroid samples by a mass spectrometer. In this mission, not only surface sampling, but also sub-surface sampling up to a depth of 1 m, will be performed. In the present paper, a sampling scenario including sub-surface sampling is proposed that does not require an anchoring system and that omits contamination from the analyzed sample. In this scenario, newly developed sampling instruments are implemented. In addition, ground experiments have been performed using these sampling instruments, surface sampling instruments, and sub-surface sampling instruments. The results of these experiments indicate that the sample mass required for in-situ analysis can be collected and that the proposed scenario is realistic and practical.