牧 謙一郎

Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) is a mission to Martian moons under development in JAXA with international partners to be launched in 2024. This paper introduces the system definition and the latest status of MMX program. “How was water delivered to rocky planets and enabled the habitability of the solar system?” This is the key question to which MMX is going to answer in the context of our minor body exploration strategy preceded by Hayabusa and Hayabusa2. Solar system formation theories suggest that small bodies as comets and asteroids were delivery capsules of water, volatiles, organic compounds etc. from outside of the snow line to entitle the rocky planet region to be habitable. Mars was at the gateway position to witness the process, which naturally leads us to explore two Martian moons, Phobos and Deimos, to answer to the key question. The goal of MMX is to reveal the origin of the Martian moons, and then to make a progress in our understanding of planetary system formation and of primordial material transport around the border between the inner- and the outer-part of the early solar system. The mission is to survey two Martian moons, and return samples from one of them, Phobos. In view of the launch in 2024, the phase-A study was completed in February, 2020. The mission definition, mission scenario, system definition, critical technologies and programmatic framework are introduced int this paper.

The exploration of energization and radiation in geospace (ERG) satellite, nicknamed "Arase," is the second satellite in a series of small scientific satellites created by the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. It was launched on December 20, 2016, by the Epsilon launch vehicle. The purpose of the ERG project is to investigate how high-energy (over MeV) electrons in the radiation belts surrounding Earth are generated and lost by monitoring the interactions between plasma waves and electrically charged particles. To measure these physical processes in situ, the ERG satellite traverses the heart of the radiation belts. The orbit of the ERG is highly elliptical and varies due to the perturbation force: the apogee altitude is approximately 32,200-32,300 km, and the perigee altitude is 340-440 km. In this study, we introduce the scientific background for this project and four major challenges that need to be addressed to effectively carry out this scientific mission with a small satellite: (1) dealing with harsh environmental conditions in orbit and electromagnetic compatibility issues, (2) spin attitude stabilization and avoiding excitation of the libration by flexible structures, (3) attaining an appropriate balance between the mission requirements and the limited resources of the small satellite, and (4) the adaptation and use of a flexible standardized bus. In this context, we describe the development process and the flight operations for the satellite, which is currently working as designed and obtaining excellent data in its mission.