尾崎 直哉

We propose thrust vector management by correctly positioning the thruster on a spacecraft by thrust vector measurement to decrease unwanted torque of thrust vector misalignment. A ground test was performed to measure 2-dimensional ion current distribution of 10W-class miniature ion thruster by electrostatic probe. The thrust vector measurement test showed that the thrust vector inclining angle was 1.4^º from the geometrically symmetric axis of the thruster. The thruster was positioned on the first interplanetary micro-spacecraft: PROCYON after redesigning thruster bracket. Thrust vector estimation in the initial on-orbit operation of 6.5 hours showed that thrust vector passes through within 5mm of the PROCYON's center of gravity.

This paper proposes a novel radiative cooling system for a high temperature superconducting (HTS) coil for an attitude orbit control system in nano- and micro-spacecraft missions. These days, nano-spacecraft (1-10 kg) and micro-spacecraft (10-100 kg) provide space access to a broader range of spacecraft developers and attract interest as space development applications. In planetary and high earth orbits, most previous standard-size spacecraft used thrusters for their attitude and orbit control, which are not available for nano- and micro-spacecraft missions because of the strict power consumption, space, and weight constraints. This paper considers orbit and attitude control methods that use a superconducting coil, which interacts with on-orbit space plasmas and creates a propulsion force. Because these spacecraft cannot use an active cooling system for the superconducting coil because of their mass and power consumption constraints, this paper proposes the utilization of a passive radiative cooling system, in which the superconducting coil is thermally connected to the 3 K cosmic background radiation of deep space, insulated from the heat generation using magnetic holders, and shielded from the sun. With this proposed cooling system, the HTS coil is cooled to 60 K in interplanetary orbits. Because the system does not use refrigerators for its cooling system, the spacecraft can achieve an HTS coil with low power consumption, small mass, and low cost. (C) 2014 COSPAR. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2015 by the American Institute Federation of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Inc. All rights reserved. PROCYON is the first deep-space micro-spacecraft; it was developed at low cost and short time (about one year) by the University of Tokyo and JAXA, and was launched on December 3rd, 2014 as a secondary payload of the H II A launch of Hayabusa2. The mission primary objective is the technology demonstration of a microspacecraft bus for deepspace exploration; the second objectives are several engineering and science experiments, including an asteroid flyby. This paper presents PROCYON high-fidelity, very-low-Thrust trajectory design and implementation, subject to mission and operation constraints. Contingency plans during the first months of operations are also discussed. All trajectories are optimized in high-fidelity model with jTOP, a mission design tool first presented in this paper. Following the ion engine failure of March 2015, it was found the nominal asteroid could not be targeted if the failure was not resolved by mid-April. A new approach to compute attainable sets for low-Thrust trajectories is also presented.

PROCYON (PRoximate Object Close flyby with Optical Navigation) is a 50kg-class micro-spacecraft developed by the University of Tokyo and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), to be launched in an Earth resonant trajectory at the end of 2014 as a secondary payload with Hayabusa 2 mission. The mission objective is to demonstrate low cost and applicability of a micro-spacecraft bus technology for deep space exploration and proximity flyby to asteroids performing optical navigation. This paper introduces the spacecraft and mission design for PROCYON, as well as, the operation strategy mainly for the deep-space cruising period

This study aims to optimize a low-thrust trajectory for spacecraft in the event of stochastic operational anomaly. Most of the recent study have focused on the deterministic trajectory optimization for preliminary mission design. In the low-thrust operation, which conventionally use empirical (nonoptimum) operation strategies, the duty cycle of low-thrust propulsion is imposed throughout the trajectory. This paper presents the optimum value of duty cycle in the each operation cycle using Lagrange multiplier. The result shows that constant duty cycle constraint is optimal solution if surplus coasting period in the unit operation cycle is not used as thrusting period in other words, the constant duty cycle throughout the thrust arc is not always optimum strategy if surplus coasting period is intensively used at the end of thrusting arc. Numerical example shows that the solution calculated numerically corresponds to the theoretical solution.

Copyright ©2014 by the International Astronautical Federation. All rights reserved. PROCYON (PRoximate Object Close flY by with Optical Navigation) is world's first mission aimed to demonstrate the technology of a micro spacecraft deep space exploration and proximity flyby to asteroids. The mission is developed by the University of Tokyo in collaboration with ISAS, JAXA. The spacecraft is scheduled to be launched as a secondary payload in late 2014 with Hayabusa 2 spacecraft. PROCYON will first target back to the Earth using its miniature ion engine; then it will transfer to the target asteroid using Earth gravity assist; finally it will use optical navigation to perform proximity flyby of the asteroid. Due to the very low thrust and limited propellant of the mission, it is therefore important to ensure that the mission objective and requirements can still be satisfied under different conditions and parameters. In this paper, we present the results of a broad sensitivity study of PROCYONs trajectory due to various launch dates and mission parameters.