Free Astronomy Magazine November-December 2018

9 SMALL BODIES 30x30x20 cm, weighs nearly 10 kg, and car- ries four scien- tific instruments (the MASCAM camera, the Mi- crOmega infra- red spectrome- ter, the MAS- MAG magneto- meter and the MARA radiome- ter). MASCOT does not have solar panels, but a battery with an autonomy of about 15 hours. For this reason, unlike the three smaller rovers, it has already completed its mission, as we will detail later. After 1302 days of flight and at a distance of almost 300 million km from the Earth, Hayabusa2 and its fleet of rovers reached their destination on June 27, 2018. With a O n the right, some re- searchers of the Deutsches Zen- trum für Luft- und Raumfahrt evaluate the first images sent to Earth by Haya- busa2. [DLR] A bove, MASCOT on the surface of Ryugu according to a graphic reconstruction. On the right, a sequence of images of the real landing of MASCOT on the surface of the asteroid acquired on 3 October 2018 with the wide-angle optical navigation camera. [DLR, JAXA, Tokyo University, Kochi Univ., Rikkyo Univ., Nagoya Univ., Chiba Institute of Technology, Meiji Univ., Aizu Univ., AIST] total of ten trajectory correction maneuvers (TCM), the probe approached the asteroid up to a distance of about 20 km. The rela- tive speed between the two objects does not exceed 1 cm/s. Beginning from that mo- ment, and for the following months, the probe and the asteroid proceed side-by-side in their run around the Sun.