TOMIKI ATSUSHI

A 6U CubeSat “OMOTENASHI” was developed to be the world's smallest moon lander. It was launched by NASA's SLS Artemis-1 on November 16, 2022. However, because of the spacecraft anomaly, the battery was depleted and the communication with the spacecraft had been lost. After we gave up the moon landing experiment, we have been conducting a search and rescue operation till September 2023. But it was unsuccessful, unfortunately. In this article, the mission objective, the spacecraft design, the planed mission scenario, and the in-orbit operation results are presented. Additionally, lessons learned from the development and the in-orbit operation are presented.

This paper presents a collaborative effort between NASA and JAXA to make 3-way Doppler data from JAXA tracking stations available to the Artemis 1 navigation team to improve orbit determination. The paper describes the system configuration and concept of operation of this capability. Testing effort at the three JAXA's ground stations - the Uchinoura's 20-m and 34-m antennas and Usuda's 64-m antenna - are discussed. Both aspects of system testing are highlighted, first on the use of Artemis 1 recorded signal to ensure compatibility between ground and flight systems, and second on the tracking with the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, as a substitute for Artemis before launch, to validate other key operational functions such as ephemeris processing, spacecraft tracking capability, data delivery, and interactions among multiple operational teams in different organizations. Results from actual support to Artemis 1's Orion spacecraft in November-December 2022 are also presented.

This chapter presents an ongoing effort in preparing JAXA Uchinoura station support to the Artemis 1 mission, scheduled for launch in late 2020. The system involves three key participants: JAXA ground station at Uchinoura, the Deep Space Network (DSN) components at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California, and the Artemis 1 mission navigation at the NASA Johnson Space Center, Texas.Demonstration of Uchinoura station support to the future Artemis signal relies on the use of a low-cost, highly-portable software-defined radio (SDR) test equipment as well as the tracking of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft. Using the SDR equipment, we validated the compatibility of signal format between the Artemis flight radio and the Uchinoura ground station without having to send the flight equipment to the station. By tracking an ongoing operational spacecraft such as LRO, we were able to calibrate the performance of the system in real operational conditions. The measured Doppler noise of 0.03 Hz (1-sigma), or 0.002 m/s range rate at S-band, for Uchinoura station is deemed suitable to the Artemis 1 mission navigation needs.This chapter also discusses the test equipment capability and its performance. In addition to being low cost, the equipment offers many advantages compared to the traditional full-scaled test signal simulator. Chief among them is portability making system easy to set up and transport, and the fidelity of the test signal that it captures from spacecraft flight equipment. Some of the lessons learned, such as internal frequency stability of the test signal, are also reflected.

Copyright © 2020 by the International Astronautical Federation (IAF). All rights reserved. A 6U CubeSat “OMOTENASHI” will be the world's smallest moon lander which is launched by NASA SLS Artemis-1. Because of its severe mass and size limitation, it will adopt semi-hard landing scheme. That is, OMOTENASHI is decelerated from orbital velocity to less than 50 m/s by a small solid rocket motor and shock absorption mechanism has been developed to withstand the high-speed impact. Ultra small communication system (X-band and P-band) is also developed. It observes radiation environment of Earth and moon region with portable dosimeters. This paper shows the mission outline, the design, and the development results of OMOTENASHI.