- Email: [email protected]
The MUSES-C mission for the sample and return—its technology development status and readiness
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
Acta Astronautica 52 (2003) 117 – 123 www.elsevier.com/locate/actaastro
The MUSES-C mission for the sample and return—its technology development status and readiness Jun’ichiro Kawaguchi∗ , Kuninori Uesugi, Akira Fujiwara The Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS), 3-1-1 Yoshinodai, Sagamihara, Kanagawa 229-8510, Japan
Abstract The MUSES-C mission is a technology demonstration project, which at the same time aims at sample and return from extra-terrestrial object, an asteroid to the Earth. It is scheduled to be launched in 2002 and the 3ight model hardware is being fabricated currently. This paper presents the latest hardware readiness of the spacecraft which has completed both the mechanical environment and thermal vacuum tests. This paper also describes the mission requirement and scenario showing the pictures of some components. c 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction Towards the world’s 6rst sample and return from an extra-terrestrial object [4,7], 1989ML, a near-Earth Asteroid, the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) of Japan has made an e
to be actually realized in the 3ight model (FM) fabrication. The FM phase started from April 1999 and the fabrication of every component of the spacecraft was 6nished at the end of the year 2000, followed by the interface and 6tness check-out from January 2001. ISAS terminated its 6rst long-term operation test of its new type of an ion engine. It 6nished 18; 000 h of endurance test, which is the world’s incredibly long record that well meets the mission requirement. The engine makes use of the microwave excitation for the plasma generation excluding any electrode that has restricted the life of the conventional ion engines so far. The grid made of the carbon–carbon composite has also contributed to lengthening the life. Another long-term test using the FM has started again this year for another con6rmation of its readiness towards the launch. The ablator material arc heating tests were completed in December 1998 at the NASA Ames Research Center, which indicated the good and suDcient performance of the heatshield developed by ISAS. ISAS conducts the DASH high-speed reentry demonstration 3ight the next year of 2001, by putting the small 90 kg payload (orbiter and capsule) to the H-IIA
c 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. 0094-5765/03/$ - see front matter PII: S 0 0 9 4 - 5 7 6 5 ( 0 2 ) 0 0 1 4 6 - 7
118
J. Kawaguchi et al. / Acta Astronautica 52 (2003) 117 – 123
Fig. 1. The MUSES-C spacecraft con6guration.
vehicle and placing it into the GTO trajectory. The DASH carries a similar reentry capsule that weighs 20 kg, which is decelerated and plunges into the atmosphere with the equivalent heat 3ux environment for showing the overall performance of the reentry capsule. The paper summarizes not only the abovementioned four key technologies, but the spacecraft system and international collaboration structure as well. It also reports the termination of the development phase and describes its latest status and technologies readiness. The target object of the MUSES-C is 1989ML, a near-Earth asteroid. Its type is estimated as a black chondrite that is categorized into the safe object whose sample is not requested to be contained stringently. The spacecraft is scheduled to be launched in July 2002, arriving at the asteroid in October 2003. It stays around the asteroid for about 6 months and leaves in March 2004. The planned reentry of the capsule occurs in June 2006. The project is a joint NASA-ISAS endeavor and the capsule is
assumed to be recovered in the Utah Training and Test Range. 2. Spacecraft outline The entire spacecraft 6gures are shown in Fig. 1 which well points where each component is placed. It is a three-axis stabilized spacecraft whose nominal attitude is pointed to the Sun so that solar power can be extracted as much as possible for driving the ion engines. Fig. 2 shows the assembled mechanical test model (MTM) of the MUSES-C. Under the collaboration between NASA and ISAS [6], the MUSES-C is supposed to carry one NASA robotic rover, a small separable vehicle (SSV) and it may take an ISAS robotic hopper MINERVA. SSV sits on the cradle, the orbiter mounted radio electronics (OMRE) that is mounted on the side panel just beneath the solar array panel at launch. The rover is released at a few 10 m altitude before the 6nal descent is commenced. The MINERVA may be included
J. Kawaguchi et al. / Acta Astronautica 52 (2003) 117 – 123
119
Fig. 4. NASA/JPL rover carried.
Fig. 2. Mechanical test model.
Fig. 5. ISAS robotic hopper MINERVA (optional). Fig. 3. Rover ejection mechanics OMRE.
in the instruments carried by the spacecraft. It does not have any actuator that touches the surface and it hops by applying the torque driving the wheel inside. In Fig. 3, the OMRE structure is shown. The OMRE consists of the rover release motor inside and the ejection direction of the OMRE is intentionally inclined
down to the surface. Fig. 4 shows the rover, and the MINERVA is shown in Fig. 5. Although the spacecraft is an engineering demonstration vehicle, it at the same time carries several scienti6c instruments: The spacecraft carries (1) a visible camera with 6lters, (2) a near-infra-red spectrometer, (3) an X-ray 3uorescent spectrometer and (4) the laser altimeter for detailed terrain measurement. The NASA rover carries (1) a panoramic imager, (2) a
120
J. Kawaguchi et al. / Acta Astronautica 52 (2003) 117 – 123
Fig. 6. Target marker bag.
near-infra-red imaging spectrograph and may include (3) alpha X-ray spectrometer. The MINERVA has its own wide camera. As a navigation aid, especially to identify the lateral velocity, the spacecraft takes the arti6cial land mark target markers aboard. A typical example is in Fig. 6. They are used illuminated by the 3ash lamp on the bottom panel and the wide camera exposes its image synchronized with the 3ash discharge. The target marker is like a kind of soft bag 6lled with glass balls so that the re3ection factor is reduced and the spacecraft can avoid bouncing. The spacecraft attitude is stabilized via the wheels whose destruction is made by the ion engine gimbals orientation. The MUSES-C has three zero-momentum reaction wheels aboard with two inertial measurement units. The spacecraft attitude is established
by the combination of the sun sensors and the start tracker. The spacecraft carries several kinds of optical instruments: One is the LIDAR, a laser altimeter whose aperture is open downward at the bottom. The other one is the LRF, laser range 6nders that are mounted close to the center bottom. One LRF head targets the re3ector on the sampler horn in order to detect the horn deformation to trigger the touchdown sequence. One telescope camera is onboard with the 6lters wheel for scienti6c purposes. Two wide cameras are also carried by the spacecraft, either of which has its aperture downward to take the target marker images to cancel out the lateral velocity with respect to the surface. The other one is mounted on the side panel and is reserved for terminator science observation and assumed to play the STar Tracker (STT) role when STT is broken. The attitude control scenario assumed is very sophisticated and its functional and realistic simulations are performed by using a recon6gured mobile crane machine TRAM. Fig. 7a shows the LRF sensor heads placed on the platform at the tip end of the TRAM (Fig. 7b). The MUSES-C spacecraft is propelled by the electric ion engines aboard. The spacecraft has relatively large solar array panels that generate about 2 kW at the Earth distance. Four engine heads are onboard. Each thruster generates about 7 mN. The use of four thruster con6guration enables the high speci6c impulse even while the output is throttled. What is the most characteristic point of it lies in: (1) the microwave stimulation to generate the plasma and (2) the use of carbon–carbon composite grid instead of metal. Both these two major contemporary designs contribute to lengthening the life up to 18; 000 h or more, which
Fig. 7. (a) Laser range 6nder head; and (b) translation motion simulator, TRAM.
J. Kawaguchi et al. / Acta Astronautica 52 (2003) 117 – 123
121
Fig. 8. (a) Ion thrusters gimbal; and (b) clustered ion thruster table.
Fig. 9. Sampler tube and transfer mechanism.
satis6es the mission requirement. The thrusters are mounted on the gimbaled table which is controlled to cancel out the disturbing torque caused by the thrust vector o
Fig. 10. Capsule and sample collector.
catcher is a canister which has separated compartments and is pushed into the reentry capsule mounted at the side panel of the spacecraft. The sample collected is 6nally to be recovered on the ground. A small reentry capsule is taken by the spacecraft. The heat shield material was developed and tested at ISAS before the Ames tests had started. The reentry capsule is mounted on the X instruments panel (Fig. 13). It weighs approximately 18 kg and its diameter is about 400 mm.
122
J. Kawaguchi et al. / Acta Astronautica 52 (2003) 117 – 123
Fig. 13. Capsule mechanical test model.
Fig. 11. Projectors and upper horn.
The high-gain antenna (HGA) 1:6 m in diameter is placed atop the spacecraft. The X-band up and down links are baseline with two receivers and one transmitter whose output is boosted by two power ampli6ers aboard. Two medium gain horn antenna (MGA) are mounted on the spacecraft inclined to the HGA radiative direction. One MGA is gimbaled to ensure the downlink communication while the ion engines are driven towards the prescribed acceleration direction. It enables approximately 8 bps slow telemetry downlink all the time, through which a kind of report packets are transmitted. In addition to HGA, MGAs, the spacecraft carries three low-gain antennas for securing the command link whatever attitude the spacecraft is at. 3. Remarks
Fig. 12. Extended sampler horn.
The MUSES-C is scheduled to be launched in 2002. This paper deals with the latest status of the mission, showing the pictures of the instruments fabricated in time for the MTM tests. Therefore the project consists of the very new instruments that needed development. The software and the hovering to touchdown scenarios are all omitted here. Those who are interested in these scenarios had better access, the relevant papers listed below.
J. Kawaguchi et al. / Acta Astronautica 52 (2003) 117 – 123 Table 1 Mission dates
Event
1989 ML
Launch Asteroid arrival Asteroid departure Earth return
July 2002 October 2003 March 2004 June 2006
123
chondrite is found well. The spectrum type is important from the planetary protection point of view and the MUSES-C also thinks it shall comply with the COSPAR indication as to the parameters such as the containment speci6cation. This is at the same time compatible with the NASA policy. Every fabrication of hardware and software is on time and the paper reports the spacecraft is being made ready for launch. References
Fig. 14. Spectrum data of 1989ML (Ref. [3]).
The updated nominal target of the MUSES-C spacecraft is a Near-Earth Asteroid 1989ML (10302). The launch is scheduled in July 2002 and the 3ight period is 4 years returning the sample to the Earth in 2006. The target has been the backup for the old nominal target Nereus. It was changed this summer in view of both the fact that the technologies development took more time than expected and that the spacecraft mass increase exceeds the launcher capability for Nereus. Every sequence of events is shifted half a year from those in the Nereus case. The mission period around the asteroid is about 6 months. The mission dates and operations anticipated are listed in Table 1. The spectrum data of 1989ML was obtained recently for 1989ML (Refs. [1–3]). An example 4of it is shown in Fig. 14, which was given by NASA. It indicates the agreement with the typical black
[1] R.P. Binzel, et al., The compositional distribution of the near earth asteroid population, Invited Talk, Asteroids, comets and meteorites meeting, Cornell University, July 26 –30, 1999. [2] D. Tholen, et al., Physical properties of MUSES-C Target (10302) 1989ML, Asteroids, comets and meteorites meeting, Cornell University, July 26 –30, 1999. [3] D. Yoemans, A personal letter, August 4, 1999. [4] J. Kawaguchi, et al., Nereus sample return mission, Acta Astronautica, 15(5) (1995) 277–284. [5] S. Sawai, et al., Development of sample collectors for the sample and return from Nereus in 2002, IAF-95-U.4.04, 1995. [6] B. Wilcox, et al., Nanorover technology and the MUSES-CN mission, Proceedings of the i-SAIRAS ‘97, W-6-2, 1997. [7] J. Kawaguchi, et al., The MUSES-C, mission description and its status, IAA-L98-0505, Third IAA International Conference on Low-Cost Planetary Missions, April 27–May 1, 1998. [8] J. Kawaguchi, et al., MUSES-C: a technology demonstrator tapping for the asteroid sample return, ISTS-98-o-3-04V, 21st International Symposium on Space Technology and Science, Sonic City, Omiya, Japan, May 24 –31, 1998. [9] J. Kawaguchi, et al., MUSES-C: technologies development and Nereus exploration scenario, Space Technology 17(5 – 6) (1997) 265 –279. [10] J. Kawaguchi, et al., MUSES-C, Asteroid sample and return journey and its technology development, IAA-11.2.5, 49th International Astronautical Congress, September 28–October 2, Melbourne, Australia. [11] J. Kawaguchi, et al., The MUSES-C, technology demonstrator for the sample and return, its current development status, IAF Small Satellite Specialists Conference, Redondo Beach, April, 1999. [12] Jun’ichiro Kawaguchi, Kuninori Tono K. Uesugi, Technology development status of the MUSES-C sample and return project, 50th International Astronautical Congress, IAF-99-IAA.11.2.02, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, October 4 –8, 1999.
Acta Astronautica 52 (2003) 117 – 123 www.elsevier.com/locate/actaastro
The MUSES-C mission for the sample and return—its technology development status and readiness Jun’ichiro Kawaguchi∗ , Kuninori Uesugi, Akira Fujiwara The Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS), 3-1-1 Yoshinodai, Sagamihara, Kanagawa 229-8510, Japan
Abstract The MUSES-C mission is a technology demonstration project, which at the same time aims at sample and return from extra-terrestrial object, an asteroid to the Earth. It is scheduled to be launched in 2002 and the 3ight model hardware is being fabricated currently. This paper presents the latest hardware readiness of the spacecraft which has completed both the mechanical environment and thermal vacuum tests. This paper also describes the mission requirement and scenario showing the pictures of some components. c 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction Towards the world’s 6rst sample and return from an extra-terrestrial object [4,7], 1989ML, a near-Earth Asteroid, the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) of Japan has made an e
to be actually realized in the 3ight model (FM) fabrication. The FM phase started from April 1999 and the fabrication of every component of the spacecraft was 6nished at the end of the year 2000, followed by the interface and 6tness check-out from January 2001. ISAS terminated its 6rst long-term operation test of its new type of an ion engine. It 6nished 18; 000 h of endurance test, which is the world’s incredibly long record that well meets the mission requirement. The engine makes use of the microwave excitation for the plasma generation excluding any electrode that has restricted the life of the conventional ion engines so far. The grid made of the carbon–carbon composite has also contributed to lengthening the life. Another long-term test using the FM has started again this year for another con6rmation of its readiness towards the launch. The ablator material arc heating tests were completed in December 1998 at the NASA Ames Research Center, which indicated the good and suDcient performance of the heatshield developed by ISAS. ISAS conducts the DASH high-speed reentry demonstration 3ight the next year of 2001, by putting the small 90 kg payload (orbiter and capsule) to the H-IIA
c 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. 0094-5765/03/$ - see front matter PII: S 0 0 9 4 - 5 7 6 5 ( 0 2 ) 0 0 1 4 6 - 7
118
J. Kawaguchi et al. / Acta Astronautica 52 (2003) 117 – 123
Fig. 1. The MUSES-C spacecraft con6guration.
vehicle and placing it into the GTO trajectory. The DASH carries a similar reentry capsule that weighs 20 kg, which is decelerated and plunges into the atmosphere with the equivalent heat 3ux environment for showing the overall performance of the reentry capsule. The paper summarizes not only the abovementioned four key technologies, but the spacecraft system and international collaboration structure as well. It also reports the termination of the development phase and describes its latest status and technologies readiness. The target object of the MUSES-C is 1989ML, a near-Earth asteroid. Its type is estimated as a black chondrite that is categorized into the safe object whose sample is not requested to be contained stringently. The spacecraft is scheduled to be launched in July 2002, arriving at the asteroid in October 2003. It stays around the asteroid for about 6 months and leaves in March 2004. The planned reentry of the capsule occurs in June 2006. The project is a joint NASA-ISAS endeavor and the capsule is
assumed to be recovered in the Utah Training and Test Range. 2. Spacecraft outline The entire spacecraft 6gures are shown in Fig. 1 which well points where each component is placed. It is a three-axis stabilized spacecraft whose nominal attitude is pointed to the Sun so that solar power can be extracted as much as possible for driving the ion engines. Fig. 2 shows the assembled mechanical test model (MTM) of the MUSES-C. Under the collaboration between NASA and ISAS [6], the MUSES-C is supposed to carry one NASA robotic rover, a small separable vehicle (SSV) and it may take an ISAS robotic hopper MINERVA. SSV sits on the cradle, the orbiter mounted radio electronics (OMRE) that is mounted on the side panel just beneath the solar array panel at launch. The rover is released at a few 10 m altitude before the 6nal descent is commenced. The MINERVA may be included
J. Kawaguchi et al. / Acta Astronautica 52 (2003) 117 – 123
119
Fig. 4. NASA/JPL rover carried.
Fig. 2. Mechanical test model.
Fig. 5. ISAS robotic hopper MINERVA (optional). Fig. 3. Rover ejection mechanics OMRE.
in the instruments carried by the spacecraft. It does not have any actuator that touches the surface and it hops by applying the torque driving the wheel inside. In Fig. 3, the OMRE structure is shown. The OMRE consists of the rover release motor inside and the ejection direction of the OMRE is intentionally inclined
down to the surface. Fig. 4 shows the rover, and the MINERVA is shown in Fig. 5. Although the spacecraft is an engineering demonstration vehicle, it at the same time carries several scienti6c instruments: The spacecraft carries (1) a visible camera with 6lters, (2) a near-infra-red spectrometer, (3) an X-ray 3uorescent spectrometer and (4) the laser altimeter for detailed terrain measurement. The NASA rover carries (1) a panoramic imager, (2) a
120
J. Kawaguchi et al. / Acta Astronautica 52 (2003) 117 – 123
Fig. 6. Target marker bag.
near-infra-red imaging spectrograph and may include (3) alpha X-ray spectrometer. The MINERVA has its own wide camera. As a navigation aid, especially to identify the lateral velocity, the spacecraft takes the arti6cial land mark target markers aboard. A typical example is in Fig. 6. They are used illuminated by the 3ash lamp on the bottom panel and the wide camera exposes its image synchronized with the 3ash discharge. The target marker is like a kind of soft bag 6lled with glass balls so that the re3ection factor is reduced and the spacecraft can avoid bouncing. The spacecraft attitude is stabilized via the wheels whose destruction is made by the ion engine gimbals orientation. The MUSES-C has three zero-momentum reaction wheels aboard with two inertial measurement units. The spacecraft attitude is established
by the combination of the sun sensors and the start tracker. The spacecraft carries several kinds of optical instruments: One is the LIDAR, a laser altimeter whose aperture is open downward at the bottom. The other one is the LRF, laser range 6nders that are mounted close to the center bottom. One LRF head targets the re3ector on the sampler horn in order to detect the horn deformation to trigger the touchdown sequence. One telescope camera is onboard with the 6lters wheel for scienti6c purposes. Two wide cameras are also carried by the spacecraft, either of which has its aperture downward to take the target marker images to cancel out the lateral velocity with respect to the surface. The other one is mounted on the side panel and is reserved for terminator science observation and assumed to play the STar Tracker (STT) role when STT is broken. The attitude control scenario assumed is very sophisticated and its functional and realistic simulations are performed by using a recon6gured mobile crane machine TRAM. Fig. 7a shows the LRF sensor heads placed on the platform at the tip end of the TRAM (Fig. 7b). The MUSES-C spacecraft is propelled by the electric ion engines aboard. The spacecraft has relatively large solar array panels that generate about 2 kW at the Earth distance. Four engine heads are onboard. Each thruster generates about 7 mN. The use of four thruster con6guration enables the high speci6c impulse even while the output is throttled. What is the most characteristic point of it lies in: (1) the microwave stimulation to generate the plasma and (2) the use of carbon–carbon composite grid instead of metal. Both these two major contemporary designs contribute to lengthening the life up to 18; 000 h or more, which
Fig. 7. (a) Laser range 6nder head; and (b) translation motion simulator, TRAM.
J. Kawaguchi et al. / Acta Astronautica 52 (2003) 117 – 123
121
Fig. 8. (a) Ion thrusters gimbal; and (b) clustered ion thruster table.
Fig. 9. Sampler tube and transfer mechanism.
satis6es the mission requirement. The thrusters are mounted on the gimbaled table which is controlled to cancel out the disturbing torque caused by the thrust vector o
Fig. 10. Capsule and sample collector.
catcher is a canister which has separated compartments and is pushed into the reentry capsule mounted at the side panel of the spacecraft. The sample collected is 6nally to be recovered on the ground. A small reentry capsule is taken by the spacecraft. The heat shield material was developed and tested at ISAS before the Ames tests had started. The reentry capsule is mounted on the X instruments panel (Fig. 13). It weighs approximately 18 kg and its diameter is about 400 mm.
122
J. Kawaguchi et al. / Acta Astronautica 52 (2003) 117 – 123
Fig. 13. Capsule mechanical test model.
Fig. 11. Projectors and upper horn.
The high-gain antenna (HGA) 1:6 m in diameter is placed atop the spacecraft. The X-band up and down links are baseline with two receivers and one transmitter whose output is boosted by two power ampli6ers aboard. Two medium gain horn antenna (MGA) are mounted on the spacecraft inclined to the HGA radiative direction. One MGA is gimbaled to ensure the downlink communication while the ion engines are driven towards the prescribed acceleration direction. It enables approximately 8 bps slow telemetry downlink all the time, through which a kind of report packets are transmitted. In addition to HGA, MGAs, the spacecraft carries three low-gain antennas for securing the command link whatever attitude the spacecraft is at. 3. Remarks
Fig. 12. Extended sampler horn.
The MUSES-C is scheduled to be launched in 2002. This paper deals with the latest status of the mission, showing the pictures of the instruments fabricated in time for the MTM tests. Therefore the project consists of the very new instruments that needed development. The software and the hovering to touchdown scenarios are all omitted here. Those who are interested in these scenarios had better access, the relevant papers listed below.
J. Kawaguchi et al. / Acta Astronautica 52 (2003) 117 – 123 Table 1 Mission dates
Event
1989 ML
Launch Asteroid arrival Asteroid departure Earth return
July 2002 October 2003 March 2004 June 2006
123
chondrite is found well. The spectrum type is important from the planetary protection point of view and the MUSES-C also thinks it shall comply with the COSPAR indication as to the parameters such as the containment speci6cation. This is at the same time compatible with the NASA policy. Every fabrication of hardware and software is on time and the paper reports the spacecraft is being made ready for launch. References
Fig. 14. Spectrum data of 1989ML (Ref. [3]).
The updated nominal target of the MUSES-C spacecraft is a Near-Earth Asteroid 1989ML (10302). The launch is scheduled in July 2002 and the 3ight period is 4 years returning the sample to the Earth in 2006. The target has been the backup for the old nominal target Nereus. It was changed this summer in view of both the fact that the technologies development took more time than expected and that the spacecraft mass increase exceeds the launcher capability for Nereus. Every sequence of events is shifted half a year from those in the Nereus case. The mission period around the asteroid is about 6 months. The mission dates and operations anticipated are listed in Table 1. The spectrum data of 1989ML was obtained recently for 1989ML (Refs. [1–3]). An example 4of it is shown in Fig. 14, which was given by NASA. It indicates the agreement with the typical black
[1] R.P. Binzel, et al., The compositional distribution of the near earth asteroid population, Invited Talk, Asteroids, comets and meteorites meeting, Cornell University, July 26 –30, 1999. [2] D. Tholen, et al., Physical properties of MUSES-C Target (10302) 1989ML, Asteroids, comets and meteorites meeting, Cornell University, July 26 –30, 1999. [3] D. Yoemans, A personal letter, August 4, 1999. [4] J. Kawaguchi, et al., Nereus sample return mission, Acta Astronautica, 15(5) (1995) 277–284. [5] S. Sawai, et al., Development of sample collectors for the sample and return from Nereus in 2002, IAF-95-U.4.04, 1995. [6] B. Wilcox, et al., Nanorover technology and the MUSES-CN mission, Proceedings of the i-SAIRAS ‘97, W-6-2, 1997. [7] J. Kawaguchi, et al., The MUSES-C, mission description and its status, IAA-L98-0505, Third IAA International Conference on Low-Cost Planetary Missions, April 27–May 1, 1998. [8] J. Kawaguchi, et al., MUSES-C: a technology demonstrator tapping for the asteroid sample return, ISTS-98-o-3-04V, 21st International Symposium on Space Technology and Science, Sonic City, Omiya, Japan, May 24 –31, 1998. [9] J. Kawaguchi, et al., MUSES-C: technologies development and Nereus exploration scenario, Space Technology 17(5 – 6) (1997) 265 –279. [10] J. Kawaguchi, et al., MUSES-C, Asteroid sample and return journey and its technology development, IAA-11.2.5, 49th International Astronautical Congress, September 28–October 2, Melbourne, Australia. [11] J. Kawaguchi, et al., The MUSES-C, technology demonstrator for the sample and return, its current development status, IAF Small Satellite Specialists Conference, Redondo Beach, April, 1999. [12] Jun’ichiro Kawaguchi, Kuninori Tono K. Uesugi, Technology development status of the MUSES-C sample and return project, 50th International Astronautical Congress, IAF-99-IAA.11.2.02, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, October 4 –8, 1999.