TY - JOUR
T1 - Mission to the Trojan asteroids
T2 - Lessons learned during a JPL Planetary Science Summer School mission design exercise
AU - Diniega, Serina
AU - Sayanagi, Kunio M.
AU - Balcerski, Jeffrey
AU - Carande, Bryce
AU - Diaz-Silva, Ricardo A.
AU - Fraeman, Abigail A.
AU - Guzewich, Scott D.
AU - Hudson, Jennifer
AU - Nahm, Amanda L.
AU - Potter-Mcintyre, Sally
AU - Route, Matthew
AU - Urban, Kevin D.
AU - Vasisht, Soumya
AU - Benneke, Bjoern
AU - Gil, Stephanie
AU - Livi, Roberto
AU - Williams, Brian
AU - Budney, Charles J.
AU - Lowes, Leslie L.
N1 - Funding Information:
This document was created by students as an educational activity at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, and does not represent an actual mission. © 2012. All rights reserved. Government sponsorship acknowledged. We thank everyone involved with the NASA-JPL Planetary Science Summer School and Team X for enriching our experience, with special thanks to Charles Budney for serving as our mentor and Leslie Lowes and Trisha Wheeler for their logistics assistance. We also thank our review board for their insight and advice: Mark Adler, Bruce Banerdt, Rosaly Lopes, Edward Miller, and Adam Steltzner. Finally, we thank our reviewers, Andrew Rivkin and Josh Emery, for their insightful and constructive comments. Diniega was supported by an appointment to the NASA Postdoctoral Program, administered by Oak Ridge Associated Universities, at the California Institute of Technology Jet Propulsion Laboratory under a contract with NASA.
PY - 2013/2
Y1 - 2013/2
N2 - The 2013 Planetary Science Decadal Survey identified a detailed investigation of the Trojan asteroids occupying Jupiter's L4 and L5 Lagrange points as a priority for future NASA missions. Observing these asteroids and measuring their physical characteristics and composition would aid in identification of their source and provide answers about their likely impact history and evolution, thus yielding information about the makeup and dynamics of the early Solar System. We present a conceptual design for a mission to the Jovian Trojan asteroids: the Trojan ASteroid Tour, Exploration, and Rendezvous (TASTER) mission, that is consistent with the NASA New Frontiers candidate mission recommended by the Decadal Survey and the final result of the 2011 NASA-JPL Planetary Science Summer School. Our proposed mission includes visits to two Trojans in the L4 population: a 500 km altitude fly-by of 1999 XS143, followed by a rendezvous with and detailed observations of 911 Agamemnon at orbital altitudes of 1000-100 km over a 12 month nominal science data capture period. Our proposed instrument payload - wide- and narrow-angle cameras, a visual and infrared mapping spectrometer, and a neutron/gamma ray spectrometer - would provide unprecedented high-resolution, regional-to-global datasets for the target bodies, yielding fundamental information about the early history and evolution of the Solar System. Although our mission design was completed as part of an academic exercise, this study serves as a useful starting point for future Trojan mission design studies. In particular, we identify and discuss key issues that can make large differences in the complex trade-offs required when designing a mission to the Trojan asteroids.
AB - The 2013 Planetary Science Decadal Survey identified a detailed investigation of the Trojan asteroids occupying Jupiter's L4 and L5 Lagrange points as a priority for future NASA missions. Observing these asteroids and measuring their physical characteristics and composition would aid in identification of their source and provide answers about their likely impact history and evolution, thus yielding information about the makeup and dynamics of the early Solar System. We present a conceptual design for a mission to the Jovian Trojan asteroids: the Trojan ASteroid Tour, Exploration, and Rendezvous (TASTER) mission, that is consistent with the NASA New Frontiers candidate mission recommended by the Decadal Survey and the final result of the 2011 NASA-JPL Planetary Science Summer School. Our proposed mission includes visits to two Trojans in the L4 population: a 500 km altitude fly-by of 1999 XS143, followed by a rendezvous with and detailed observations of 911 Agamemnon at orbital altitudes of 1000-100 km over a 12 month nominal science data capture period. Our proposed instrument payload - wide- and narrow-angle cameras, a visual and infrared mapping spectrometer, and a neutron/gamma ray spectrometer - would provide unprecedented high-resolution, regional-to-global datasets for the target bodies, yielding fundamental information about the early history and evolution of the Solar System. Although our mission design was completed as part of an academic exercise, this study serves as a useful starting point for future Trojan mission design studies. In particular, we identify and discuss key issues that can make large differences in the complex trade-offs required when designing a mission to the Trojan asteroids.
KW - Asteroid tour
KW - Mission design
KW - NASA-JPL Planetary Science Summer School
KW - Trojan asteroid
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U2 - 10.1016/j.pss.2012.11.011
DO - 10.1016/j.pss.2012.11.011
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84874104981
SN - 0032-0633
VL - 76
SP - 68
EP - 82
JO - Planetary and Space Science
JF - Planetary and Space Science
IS - 1
ER -