11:00 AM - 1:00 PM
[PCG18-P09] Concept study of narrow and wide angle cameras for Comet Interceptor mission
Comet Interceptor is selected as ESA’s F-class mission, which will be lunch in 2028 (Snodgrass and Jones, 2019). While other cometary missions in the past visited the short period comets (SPC), Comet Interceptor’s target is a long period comet (LPC), which has been less heated by the Sun than SPC. This mission will bring us new insights of the cometary nucleus shape, morphology, composition, and plasma science. Comet Interceptor will be made of a mothership and two smaller probes, both of which encounter the target body via high-speed flyby. One probe named B1 will be supplied by JAXA. Scientific instruments on probe B1 are Hydrogen Imager, Plasma Suite, and NAC/WAC (Narrow-Angle Camera and Wide-Angle Camera). We report recent progress of the concept study of the NAC/WAC system.
NAC/WAC system consist of an electrical box, NAC CCD imaging sensor and optics, and WAC CMOS imaging sensor and optics. Science goal of the NAC is to characterize the shape and morphology of LPC’s nucleus, and WAC is to observe the large structure of dust coma around the nucleus. NAC will be developed based on a heritage of MMX TENGOO (Kameda et al., 2021). The field of view of NAC is 3.5 deg x 2.6 degrees, and the instantaneous field of view is 0.018 mrad/pix. At the nominal flyby distance of 850 km, pixel resolution is about 15 m/pix. The field of view of WAC is 90 x 90 degrees, which covers the field of view of NAC. One of the most challenging aspects of NAC/WAC observations is the nucleus imaging at the closest approach during the high-speed flyby (relative velocity < 70 km/s). In this presentation, we will mainly explain this observation strategy at the closest timing.
References:
Snodgrass and Jones (2019) The European Space Agency’s Comet Interceptor lies in wait, Nature Communications 10.
Kameda et al. (2021) Design of telescopic nadir imager for geomorphology (TENGOO) and observation of surface reflectance by optical chromatic imager (OROCHI) for the Martian Moons Exploration (MMX), Earth, Planets and Space 73:218.
NAC/WAC system consist of an electrical box, NAC CCD imaging sensor and optics, and WAC CMOS imaging sensor and optics. Science goal of the NAC is to characterize the shape and morphology of LPC’s nucleus, and WAC is to observe the large structure of dust coma around the nucleus. NAC will be developed based on a heritage of MMX TENGOO (Kameda et al., 2021). The field of view of NAC is 3.5 deg x 2.6 degrees, and the instantaneous field of view is 0.018 mrad/pix. At the nominal flyby distance of 850 km, pixel resolution is about 15 m/pix. The field of view of WAC is 90 x 90 degrees, which covers the field of view of NAC. One of the most challenging aspects of NAC/WAC observations is the nucleus imaging at the closest approach during the high-speed flyby (relative velocity < 70 km/s). In this presentation, we will mainly explain this observation strategy at the closest timing.
References:
Snodgrass and Jones (2019) The European Space Agency’s Comet Interceptor lies in wait, Nature Communications 10.
Kameda et al. (2021) Design of telescopic nadir imager for geomorphology (TENGOO) and observation of surface reflectance by optical chromatic imager (OROCHI) for the Martian Moons Exploration (MMX), Earth, Planets and Space 73:218.