MASCOT landing on Ryugu, 3 October 2018 Options

[Guest_mcmcmc_*]

image!

https://twitter.com/MASCOT2018/status/1047406828617965568

[neo56]

JAXA just released the picture on its MASCOT lander feed: we even see the shadow of MASCOT

[Guest_mcmcmc_*]

JAXA just released the picture on its MASCOT lander feed: we even see the shadow of MASCOT

Released where? I found this image, but 180° rotated, on MASCOT2018 Twitter feed.

[Gerald]

Press conference is continuing on YouTube.
There will be two more updates in 2 resp. 4 hours from now.

[Gerald]

Mascot is fine after initial issues.
Performing night sequences, all instruments are working.

[Gerald]

"short delay - stay tuned"

[Weywot]

https://twitter.com/MASCOT2018/status/1047456139024261121

The team seems very confident in the hopping and uprighting mechanism. The found the first landung spot too dark and unstable, so commanded a first hop at the beginning of the first sol, to begin the science sequence at another location.

Next press conference has a delay but should beginn soon.

[Gerald]

live again...

[Gerald]

They had to make an important decision. Therefore the delay.

Spectrometer needs to be in contact with the surface.

Radiometer will tell about thermal conductivity.
Important for deflection of asteroids: What's the arrangement of grains?

Magnetometer: Extremely sensitive, seeing separation, and operation of instruments. Magnetic field data to be cleaned from those instrument operation fields.
They're going to be tired and will drink a beer this evening. Tomorrow, and until Friday, they'll take a look at the data. A first draft of evaluation will take a few more days of computation. But complete evaluaton will take years.

[Weywot]

Also interesting: Magentometer team decided to switch off the instrument to safe power, as the have enough data. Let's hope the second sol goes well. The estimate of 16 h battery time probably does not allow for surviving a third night.

[Guest_mcmcmc_*]

I read that expected battery life is just 16 hours and it's not rechargeable (no solar panels), and delivery occurred at around 02:17 GMT.
So MASCOT mission should come to its end at around 18:17 GMT, 3 hours from now.

[Weywot]

Indeed. There will be another press conference in 25 min, maybe they tell us more about the expected life time of the battery. I think it is targeted to last at least two sols in the worst case. Also in the grphic from JAXA, end of mission (EOM) is during the third night. Let's hope for the best, and that the DLR team as uploaded a energy saving program for the third night, so MASCOT may have the chance to upload the data in the next morning, if it survives.
Otherwise the last hours in the night without contact are wasted.

The technical reason is the mass constraint. With just 10 kg, solar panels and rechargables are just too heavy. Rechargables and do not have the energy density compared to non-rechargable batteries. Also, the location MASCOT finally settles was unknown, so no sun light guaranteed. And as we have seen with Philae, if the additional power from solar is required for the science goal, this just adds to the risk.

[neo56]

I added a scale to the first picture we have from MASCOT, and Buzz Aldrin to better figure out the scale (like Mystery Man of fredk )
The altitude at which this picture was taken in 25 m and not 40 m as it was previously stated.

[Weywot]

Very nice, those are some big bolders. And again, shadows in the "right" direction makes it so much easier to grasp for my brain.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSoEapbchGA

JAXA press conference for MASCOT with english translation.

[nprev]

I added a scale to the first picture we have from MASCOT, and Buzz Aldrin to better figure out the scale (like Mystery Man of fredk )

The official unit of all future photographic scale references on Ryugu is now the "Aldrin".