{"id":6945,"date":"2015-12-10T10:37:52","date_gmt":"2015-12-10T10:37:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/revoscience.com\/en\/?p=6945"},"modified":"2015-12-10T10:37:52","modified_gmt":"2015-12-10T10:37:52","slug":"robot-arm-simulates-close-approach-of-esas-asteroid-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/robot-arm-simulates-close-approach-of-esas-asteroid-mission\/","title":{"rendered":"Robot arm simulates close approach of ESA’s asteroid mission"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Camera<\/a>
Camera by model asteroid<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The final approach to an asteroid has been practised for ESA\u2019s proposed Asteroid Impact Mission using a real spacecraft camera mounted on a robot arm.<\/span><\/p>\n

The 2020 AIM mission would find its way across deep space as usual with startrackers and radio ranging but the real challenge would come after arrival at its target Didymos double asteroids: picking its way around these unprecedented surroundings to close in on the smaller asteroid for detailed observations and setting down a lander.<\/span><\/p>\n

The rehearsal took place at the Madrid headquarters of Spain\u2019s GMV company, with ESA\u2019s arm-mounted camera using dedicated navigation software to close in on a model asteroid.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBy including an actual navigation camera in the loop, we made the test as realistic as possible,\u201d explains ESA guidance specialist Massimo Casasco.<\/span><\/p>\n

[pullquote]The ultimate goal for AIM is to demonstrate new ways to explore small Solar System bodies in the future[\/pullquote]<\/p>\n

As the Rosetta comet adventure showed last year, landing on a small body is no easy task.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOne of AIM\u2019s objectives is to put down a lander on the smaller of the Didymos asteroids using onboard autonomy and very limited resources,\u201d says Ian Carnelli, ESA\u2019s AIM project manager.<\/span><\/p>\n

The low-budget AIM will avoid costly dedicated proximity sensors, instead calling on smart visual navigation software to track its motion over the surface.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In addition, it might reuse its laser communication package for measuring height above the surface.<\/span><\/p>\n

ESA\u2019s camera took images for the processing software to first select landmark \u2018feature points\u2019 within the field of view and then to follow them from frame to frame.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"AIM<\/a>
AIM and lander<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The camera itself has a detector that acquires the images, a \u2018frame store\u2019 for their intermediate storage and an image-processing chip to perform the feature tracking, before providing the information to AIM\u2019s guidance and navigation computer.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe changing tracks of the various feature points over time (shown in purple in the video) are checked against the onward and rotational motion of the spacecraft to determine its position and orientation,\u201d says ESA guidance expert Olivier Dubois-Matra.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe ultimate goal for AIM is to demonstrate new ways to explore small Solar System bodies in the future,\u201d adds Ian, \u201cso we are testing this approach as fully as possible. In effect, the test bench is a fully fledged optical and robotic laboratory, testing AIM\u2019s approach and the lander descent right down to deployment altitude.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Test<\/a>
Test camera<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

<\/strong>With a launch window opening in October 2020, AIM would be humanity\u2019s first mission to a double asteroid. Its first major design review next month will allow detailed design to begin in February.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Mascot-2 lander is being designed and tested by Germany\u2019s DLR space agency and is based on the lander scheduled to reach asteroid Ryugu as part of Japan\u2019s Hayabusa-2 in July 2018.<\/span><\/p>\n

NASA\u2019s own Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, probe will impact the same asteroid, with AIM providing detailed before-and-after mapping to help assess the effects and test planetary defence techniques.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The final approach to an asteroid has been practised for ESA\u2019s proposed Asteroid Impact Mission using a real spacecraft camera mounted on a robot arm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":6946,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-space-news"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Camera_by_model_asteroid_medium.jpg",305,320,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Camera_by_model_asteroid_medium-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Camera_by_model_asteroid_medium-285x300.jpg",285,300,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Camera_by_model_asteroid_medium.jpg",305,320,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Camera_by_model_asteroid_medium.jpg",305,320,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Camera_by_model_asteroid_medium.jpg",305,320,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Camera_by_model_asteroid_medium.jpg",305,320,false],"ultp_layout_landscape_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Camera_by_model_asteroid_medium.jpg",305,320,false],"ultp_layout_landscape":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Camera_by_model_asteroid_medium.jpg",305,320,false],"ultp_layout_portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Camera_by_model_asteroid_medium.jpg",305,320,false],"ultp_layout_square":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Camera_by_model_asteroid_medium.jpg",305,320,false],"newspaper-x-single-post":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Camera_by_model_asteroid_medium.jpg",305,320,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-big":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Camera_by_model_asteroid_medium.jpg",305,320,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-list-image":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Camera_by_model_asteroid_medium.jpg",62,65,false],"web-stories-poster-portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Camera_by_model_asteroid_medium.jpg",305,320,false],"web-stories-publisher-logo":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Camera_by_model_asteroid_medium.jpg",92,96,false],"web-stories-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Camera_by_model_asteroid_medium.jpg",150,157,false]},"author_info":{"info":["Amrita Tuladhar"]},"category_info":"Space\/ AstroPhysics<\/a>","tag_info":"Space\/ AstroPhysics","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}