after launch a year ago was hayabusa 2 orbiting earth or just traveling in earth's orbit around the sun? thx.
how did hayabusa 2 get to 3090 km from earth for the gravity assist?
We report results of a laser link experiment between a laser altimeter called light detection and ranging (LIDAR) aboard Hayabusa2 and ground-based satellite laser ranging stations conducted when the spacecraft was near the Earth before and after the gravity assist operation. Uplink laser pulses from a ground station were successfully detected at a distance of 6.6 million km, and the field of view direction of the receiving telescope of the LIDAR was determined in the spacecraft frame. The intensities of the received signals were measured, and the link budget from the ground to the LIDAR was confirmed. By detecting two successive pulses, the pulse intervals from the ground-based station were transferred to the LIDAR, and the clock frequency offset was thus successfully calibrated based on the pulse intervals. The laser link experiment, which includes alignment measurement of the telescopes, has proven to be an excellent method to confirm the performance of laser altimeters before they arrive at their target bodies, especially for deep space missions.
AbstractIn September 2015, a team of astronomers from the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, University of Michigan, Kyoto Sangyo University, Rikkyo University and the University of Tokyo successfully observed the entire hydrogen coma of the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, using the LAICA telescope onboard the PROCYON spacecraft. They also succeeded in obtaining the absolute rate of water discharge from the comet.This comet was the target of ESA’s Rosetta mission in 2015. Because the Rosetta spacecraft was actually inside the cometary coma, it couldn’t observe the overall coma structure. There were bad observing conditions during the time the comet could be observed from Earth, so through our observations, we were able to test the coma models for the comet for the first time.Comet observation by the PROCYON spacecraft had not been scheduled in the original mission plan. Thanks to the efforts of the spacecraft and telescope operation teams, observations were conducted shortly after we started discussing the possibility, producing results of great scientific importance.This result is the first scientific achievement by a micro spacecraft for deep space exploration. Moreover, this provides an ideal example where observations by a low-cost mission (e.g., the PROCYON mission) support precise observations by a large mission (e.g., the Rosetta mission). We hope this will become a model case for micro spacecraft observations in support of large missions.This result was published in the Astronomical Journal on January 24, 2017 at 12:00 am EST.
Resolution calculations:ONC-T: 1024x1024, 5.7°x5.7°ONC-W1: 1024x1024, 60°x60°ONC-W2: 1024x1024, 60°x60° MASCOT: 1024x1024, 55°x55°DCAM3: 2000x2000, 74°x74°