S. Ulamec

• Dr.
• Project Manager at German Aerospace Center (DLR)

Icy bodies with subsurface oceans are a prime target for astrobiology investigations, with an increasing number of scientists participating in the planning, development, and realization of space missions to these worlds. Within Germany, the Ocean Worlds and Icy Moons working group of the German Astrobiology Society provides an invaluable platform f...

The exploration of icy environments in the solar system, such as the poles of Mars and the icy moons (a.k.a. ocean worlds), is a key aspect for understanding their astrobiological potential as well as for extraterrestrial resource inspection. On these worlds, ice melting probes are considered to be well suited for the robotic clean execution of suc...

The Hayabusa2 mission provided a unique data set of asteroid Ryugu that covers a wide range of spatial scale from the orbiter remote sensing instruments to the returned samples. The MASCOT lander that was delivered onto the surface of Ryugu aimed to provide context for these data sets by producing in situ data collected by a camera (MasCam), a radi...

Comets are generally considered among the most pristine objects in our Solar System. There have thus been significant efforts to understand these bodies. During the past decades, we have seen significant progress in our theoretical understanding of planetesimal/cometesimals (the precursors of comets) formation. Recent space missions—such as ESA’s R...

The Mars Moon eXploration (MMX) mission by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, JAXA, is going to explore the Martian Moons Phobos and Deimos. In addition to investigating the moons remotely and returning samples from Phobos, MMX will also deliver a small (about 25 kg) Rover to the surface. The payload of the Rover consists of four scientific in...

We present the Raman Spectrometer onboard JAXA’s Martian Moons Exploration (MMX) mission. As part of the MMX Rover, the RAX instrument is built to measure and identify the surface mineralogy of Phobos. This is realized by acquiring Raman spectra in-situ, surveying the geology beneath the Rover body. The RAX data supports the MMX top-level science b...

Hera is a planetary defense mission under development in the Space Safety and Security Program of the European Space Agency for launch in 2024 October. It will rendezvous in late 2026 December with the binary asteroid (65803) Didymos and in particular its moon, Dimorphos, which will be impacted by NASA’s DART spacecraft on 2022 September 26 as the...

The Philae lander of the Rosetta space mission made a non-nominal landing on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on November 12, 2014. Shortly after, using the limited power available from Philae’s batteries, the COSAC instrument performed a single 18-minutes gas chromatogram, which has remained unpublished until now due to the lack of identifiable elu...

The MMX (Martian Moons eXploration) mission, currently under the critical design phase in JAXA, is overviewed with a focus on the scientific aspects. The main objectives of this mission are to reveal the origin and evolution of Martian moons, the transport of volatile materials to terrestrial planets across the early solar system, and the dynamics...

The Hera mission is under development in the ESA Space Safety Programme for launch in October 2024. Hera will contribute to the first deflection test of an asteroid with the NASA DART mission, in the framework of the international NASA- and ESA supported Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment (AIDA) collaboration. Once NASA DART will have perfor...

As part of the Mars Moon eXploration (MMX) mission by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, JAXA, which is going to explore both Martian Moons, Phobos and Deimos, and return samples from Phobos back to Earth it is also foreseen to deliver a small (about 25 kg) Rover to the surface of Phobos. The rover will perform in-situ measurements at the surf...

A special case of interplanetary missions includes devices that land on a planetary surface or descend through an atmosphere. Operations become more challenging, as a lander typically has additional restrictions in terms of visibility and mission planning. The landing and descent phase is particularly critical and needs special operational provisio...

The surfaces of airless bodies like Mercury undergo processes of gardening, i.e. meteoritic bombardment, and regolith alteration, due to the direct and continuous exposition of the regolith to the solar and cosmic radiation. The long exposure to the meteoritic and to the energetic ion bombardments causes deep changes in the surface features. Eventu...

The most pristine material of the Solar System is assumed to be preserved in comets in the form of dust and ice as refractory matter. ESA's mission Rosetta and its lander Philae had been developed to investigate the nucleus of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko in situ. Twenty‐five minutes after the initial touchdown of Philae on the surface of comet...

The Philae lander of the Rosetta space mission made a non‐nominal landing on comet 67P/Churyumov‐Gerasimenko on November 12, 2014. Shortly after, using the limited power available from Philae's batteries, the COSAC instrument performed a single 18‐minutes gas chromatogram, which has remained unpublished until now due to the lack of identifiable elu...

The cometary Rosetta mission visited the nucleus of Comet 67P/Churyumov‐Gerasimenko by placing the Philae Lander on its surface. Philae was equipped with a time‐of‐flight mass spectrometer that analyzed, for the first time, cometary surface material in situ. Uwe J. Meierhenrich and co‐workers describe in their Research Article (DOI: 10.1002/anie.20...

Die Rosetta‐Kometenmission erforschte den Kern des Kometen 67P/Churyumov‐Gerasimenko durch Absetzen des Philae Lander auf der Kometenoberfläche. Philae war mit einem Flugzeit‐Massenspektrometer ausgestattet, mit dem erstmals das Material der Kometenoberfläche in situ analysiert wurde. Uwe J. Meierhenrich und Mitarbeiter beschreiben in ihrem Forschu...

ESA’s roadmap for Terrae Novae 2030+ includes two payload options for the European Large Logistics Lander EL3: a) missions combining cargo delivery of logistics in support of human expeditions to the Moon, one or more scientific experiments, and technology demonstrations, and b) a self-standing European science mission. A set of major mission theme...

We propose a rover or lander mission to the Irregular Mare Patch (IMP) Ina-D. This idea was originally put forward in 2020 in response to ESA's call for ideas on the use of a European Large Logistic Lander (EL3). The mission scenario is focussed and comparably straightforward to be implemented, yet could answer fundamental science questions related...

The most pristine material of the Solar System is assumed to be preserved in comets in the form of dust and ice as refractory matter. ESA’s mission Rosetta and its lander Philae had been developed to investigate the nucleus of comet 67P/Churyumov‐Gerasimenko in situ. Twenty‐five minutes after the initial touchdown of Philae on the surface of comet...

MASCOT (‘Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout’) is a 10 kg mobile surface science package part of JAXA’s Hayabusa2 sample return mission. The mission was launched in December 2014 from Tanegashima Space Center, Japan. The Hayabusa2 spacecraft reached the target asteroid in summer 2018. After a mapping phase of the asteroid and a landing site selection pro...

Martian moons exploration, MMX, is the new sample return mission planned by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) targeting the two Martian moons with the scheduled launch in 2024 and return to the Earth in 2029. The major scientific objectives of this mission are to determine the origin of Phobos and Deimos, to elucidate the early Solar Sy...

The Japanese MMX sample return mission to Phobos by JAXA will carry a rover developed by CNES and DLR that will be deployed on Phobos to perform in situ analysis of the Martian moon’s surface properties. Past images of the surface of Phobos show that it is covered by a layer of regolith. However, the mechanical and compositional properties of this...

MASCOT (‘Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout’) is a 10 kg mobile surface science package part of JAXA’s Hayabusa2 sample return mission. The mission was launched in December 2014 from Tanegashima Space Center, Japan. The Hayabusa2 spacecraft reached the target asteroid in summer 2018. After a mapping phase of the asteroid and a landing site selection pro...

The Origo mission was submitted in response to the 2021 call for a Medium-size mission opportunity in ESA's Science Programme.The goal of Origo is to inform and challenge planetesimal formation theories. Understanding how planetesimals form in protoplanetary disks is arguably one of the biggest open questions in planetary science. To this end, it i...

Mineralogy is the key to understanding the origin of Phobos and its position in the evolution of the Solar System. In situ Raman spectroscopy on Phobos is an important tool to achieve the scientifc objectives of the Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission, and maximize the scientifc merit of the sample return by characterizing the mineral compositi...

The science operations of the spacecraft and remote sensing instruments for the Martian Moon eXploration (MMX) mission are discussed by the mission operation working team. In this paper, we describe the Phobos observations during the first 1.5 years of the spacecraft’s stay around Mars, and the Deimos observations before leaving the Martian system....

Mineralogy is the key to understanding the origin of Phobos and its position in the evolution of the Solar System. In situ Raman spectroscopy on Phobos is an important tool to achieve the scientific objectives of the Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission, and maximize the scientific merit of the sample return by characterizing the mineral composi...

The Mars Moon eXploration (MMX) mission by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, JAXA, is going to explore the Martian Moons Phobos and Deimos. It will investigate the moons remotely and also return samples from Phobos back to Earth. In addition, MMX will deliver a small (about 25 kg) Rover to the surface. The Rover accommodates a payload of four...

The Hera mission is in Phase C for launch in 2024 in the ESA Space Safety Programme. Each space mission to an asteroid, whether its requirements are driven by planetary defense, science or other objectives, has a science return that is always extremely high. The reason is that our knowledge of these fascinating objects still needs major improvement...

The goal of Project GAUSS (Genesis of Asteroids and evolUtion of the Solar System) is to return samples from the dwarf planet Ceres. Ceres is the most accessible candidate of ocean worlds and the largest reservoir of water in the inner Solar System. It shows active volcanism and hydrothermal activities in recent history. Recent evidence for the exi...

For the Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the French Centre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) jointly develop a wheeled exploration rover. This paper will discuss the planned analysis of wheeled locomotion of the MMX Rover. The focus will be on the expect...

We conduct experiments using a single-wheel testbed and simulations using the Soft-Sphere Discrete Element Method to study wheel-regolith interactions on small-body surfaces. We analyze wheel sinkage and traction on different surface materials and we discuss the influence that lowgravity has on rover maneuverability.

The Hera mission is in development for launch in 2024 within the ESA Space Safety Program. Hera will contribute to the first deflection test of an asteroid, in the framework of the international NASA and ESA-supported Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment (AIDA) collaboration. Hera will also offer a great science return.

The Mars Moon eXploration (MMX) mission by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, JAXA, will investigate the Martian Moons Phobos and Deimos. It will return samples from Phobos to Earth and deliver a small (about 25 kg) rover to the surface. This rover which is a contribution by the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES) and the German Aerospac...

We describe the AMBITION project, a mission to return the first-ever cryogenically-stored sample of a cometary nucleus, that has been proposed for the ESA Science Programme Voyage 2050. Comets are the leftover building blocks of giant planet cores and other planetary bodies, and fingerprints of Solar System’s formation processes. We summarise some...

QUADRANT is an ESA-funded project led by GMV in collaboration with key system partners (TAS and DLR) to develop a framework for the assessment of the navigation performance in small body missions, by integrating the full operational cycles and the latest technologies in autonomous GNC systems. The current HERA mission is used as the case scenario....

Hera is a mission under development in the ESA Space Safety Program, whose primary objective is to perform detailed measurements of the outcome of the NASA DART kinetic impactor test on the moon Dimorphos of the binary asteroid 65803 Didymos. Hera is equipped with 5 instruments on the main spacecraft plus two cubesats with two instruments each. Thi...

The Hera mission is under development in the ESA Space Safety Program for launch in 2024. Hera will contribute to the first deflection test of an asteroid, in the framework of the international NASA- and ESA-supported Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment (AIDA) collaboration. ESA's Hera spacecraft will rendezvous the binary asteroid 65803 Didy...

The Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, JAXA, aims for the Martian Moons Phobos and Deimos. It will return samples from Phobos back to Earth and deliver a small (about 25 kg) Rover to the surface. The Rover accommodates a payload of four scientific instruments: a Raman spectrometer (RAX) to measure the...

MASCOT (‘Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout’) is a 10 kg mobile surface science package part of JAXA’s Hayabusa2 sample return mission. The mission was launched in December 2014 from Tanegashima Space Center, Japan. The Hayabusa2 spacecraft reached the target asteroid in summer 2018. After a mapping phase of the asteroid and a landing site selection pro...

In the icy beds of its polar layered deposits (PLD), Mars likely possesses a record of its recent climate history, analogous to terrestrial ice sheets that contain records of Earth's past climate. Both northern and southern PLDs store information on the climatic and atmospheric state during the deposition of each layer (WPs: Becerra et al.; Smith e...

Mars Polar Science is an integrated, compelling system that serves as a nearby analogue to numerous other planets, supports human exploration, and habitability. Mars possesses the closest and most easily accessible layered ice deposits outside of Earth, and accessing those layers to read the climate record would be a triumph for planetary science.

At 01:57:20 UTC on October 3rd, 2018, after 3½ years of cruise aboard the JAXA spacecraft HAYABUSA2 and about 3 months in the vicinity of its target, the MASCOT lander was separated successfully by from an altitude of 41 m. After a free-fall of only ~5m51s MASCOT made first contact with C-type near-Earth and potentially hazardous asteroid (162173)...

The science operations of the spacecraft and remote sensing instruments for the MMX (Martian Moon eXploration) mission are discussed by the mission operation working team. In this paper, we describe the Phobos observations during the first 1.5 years of the spacecraft's stay around Mars, and the Deimos observations before leaving the Martian system....

After 3.5 years of cruise, and about 3 months in the vicinity of its target, the MASCOT lander was deployed successfully on 3rd October 2018 by the Hayabusa2 spacecraft onto the C-type near-Earth asteroid (162173) Ryugu. After a free-fall of 5 min 51 sec from an altitude of 41 m MASCOT experienced its first contact with the asteroid hitting a big b...

Martian moons exploration, MMX, is the new sample return mission planned by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) targeting the two Martian moons with a scheduled launch in 2024 and a return to the Earth in 2029. The major scientific objectives of this mission are to determine the origin of Phobos and Deimos, to elucidate the early Solar Sy...

Mineralogy is a key to understanding the origin of Phobos and its place in the context of the Solar System evolution. In-situ Raman spectroscopy on Phobos would be an important tool to achieve the science objectives of the Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission and maximize the science merit of sample return by characterizing the mineral compositi...

The Japanese MMX sample return mission to Phobos by JAXA will carry a Rover developed by CNES and DLR that will be deployed on Phobos to perform in-situ analysis of the Martian moon's surface properties. Past images of the surface of Phobos show that it is covered by a layer of regolith. However, the mechanical and compositional properties of this...

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)’ Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) remote sensing, robotic and sample return mission, scheduled to be launched in 2024 and to return in 2029, will have a strong focus on studying Phobos, including close-up surface analysis and collecting samples for Earth return. A rover, provided by CNES and DLR, will be...

The JAXA "Martian Moon Exploration" (MMX) mission to Phobos will include a small rover (see presentation S. Ulamec) which carries the Raman Spectrometer for MMX "RAX". The instrument is compact and lightweight yet sensitive enough to allow precision measurements of the mineralogical composition of Phobos' surface material. Here we describe the prel...

Recent Space missions to the small bodies in our Solar System have shown an increasing importance of in-situ investigations. Philae, the comet lander of the ESA Rosetta mission performed the first landing on such a small body and its results clearly enhanced the overall scientific output of the Rosetta mission. While Philae was a rather heavy (~100...

The Hera mission has been approved for development and launch in the new ESA Space SafetyProgramme by the ESA Council at Ministerial Level, Space19+, in November 2019. Hera will contributeto the first deflection test of an asteroid, in the framework of the international NASA- and ESA supportedAsteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment (AIDA) collabo...

In this study, we present several ways in which a rover wheel can be used as a tool to study regolith dynamics. We demonstrate specific analysis methods by conducting numerical simulations of a simple rover wheel traversing a bed of regolith. The simulation data is used to analyze the general flow behavior of granular material around a wheel in a r...

NEO-MAPP stands for Near Earth Object Modelling And Payload for Protection. This project is funded by the H2020 program of the European Commission and addresses the topic "Advanced research in Near Earth Objects (NEOs) and new payload technologies for planetary defence" (SUSPACE-23-SEC-2019). NEO-MAPP selected as primarily reference scenario the ES...

MASCOT, the Mobile Asteroid Surface SCOuT, is a small lander jointly developed by the German and French space agencies [Ho et al., 2017], that travelled on board of the JAXA Hayabusa2 spacecraft for over 3 years to the C-type asteroid Ryugu. The goal of MASCOT was to perform in situ measurements on the surface of the asteroid by means of its four s...

In this chapter, the key technologies and the instrumentation required for the subsurface exploration of ocean worlds are discussed. The focus is laid on Jupiter’s moon Europa and Saturn’s moon Enceladus because they have the highest potential for such missions in the near future. The exploration of their oceans requires landing on the surface, pen...

The Martian Moons Exploration (MMX) mission has been planned to launch a Martian moons probe in 2024 as one of next planetary exploration missions in Japan. In this mission, the spacecraft reaches on quasi-satellite orbits around Phobos and makes remote-sensing observations. The spacecraft then carries out two times of landing and samples material...

Mars has two satellites, Phobos and Deimos, and the origin of these satellites are still controversial. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is planning the Martian Moon eXploration (MMX) mission, which is a sample-return mission for Phobos or Deimos to reveal the origins of these two satellites. The scientific instruments onboard the MMX...

The small Martian moons Phobos and Deimos are likely a byproduct of the formation of Mars, a potentially habitable rocky planet comparable with the Earth. Owing to the lack of definitive evidence, their origin is still under debate between two leading hypotheses: the capture of volatile-rich primordial asteroid(s) and the in-situ formation from a d...

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, JAXA, Martians Moons eXploration (MMX) mission will investigate the Martian Moons Phobos and Deimos, and return samples from Phobos to Earth. As part of this mission a small (~25 kg) rover, contributed by the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR), with additional cont...

JAXA’s Hayabusa2 mission was launched in December 2014 to explore the pristine C-type asteroid (162173) Ryugu, whose bulk material can be considered representative for the volatile rich building blocks that formed the terrestrial planets. C-types are the most common variety of asteroids, and 75% of all known asteroids are of this type. They mainly...

The Rosetta observations have greatly advanced our knowledge of the cometary nucleus and its immediate environment. However, constraints on the mission (both planned and unplanned), the only partially successful Philae lander, and other instrumental issues have inevitably resulted in open questions. Surprising results from the many successful Roset...

We present the Raman spectrometer onboard the rover which will be part of JAXAs Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission, to be launched in 2024. The Raman for MMX (RAX) instrument is designed to investigate the surface mineralogy of Phobos, according to the top-level science objectives of the MMX mission as defined by JAXA. The RAX instrument inclu...

The Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) is a mission by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, JAXA, to the Martian moons Phobos and Deimos. It will primarily investigate the origin of this moon by bringing samples back from Phobos to Earth and deliver a small (about 25 kg) Rover to the surface. The Rover is a contribution by the Centre National d’Etu...

Hayabusa2 is an asteroid sample return mission operated by the Japanese space agency, JAXA. It was launched in December 2014. In July 2018, the spacecraft has reached the mission target after a 4-year-long cruise. The objective is a C-type primordial asteroid called Ryugu, in search of organic and hydrated minerals that might give essential clues f...

Landing on the surface of Ryugu In October 2018, the Hayabusa2 spacecraft dropped the Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout (MASCOT) lander onto the surface of the asteroid (162173) Ryugu. Jaumann et al. analyzed images taken by the MASCOT camera during its descent and when resting on the surface. Colored light-emitting diodes were used to illuminate the l...

The goal of Project GAUSS is to return samples from the dwarf planet Ceres. Ceres is the most accessible ocean world candidate and the largest reservoir of water in the inner solar system. It shows active cryovolcanism and hydrothermal activities in recent history that resulted in minerals not found in any other planets to date except for Earth's u...

The goal of Project GAUSS is to return samples from the dwarf planet Ceres. Ceres is the most accessible ocean world candidate and the largest reservoir of water in the inner solar system. It shows active cryovolcanism and hydrothermal activities in recent history that resulted in minerals not found in any other planets to date except for Earth’s u...

This white paper proposes that AMBITION, a Comet Nucleus Sample Return mission, be a cornerstone of ESA's Voyage 2050 programme. We summarise some of the most important questions still open in cometary science after the successes of the Rosetta mission, many of which require sample analysis using techniques that are only possible in laboratories on...

We report on the Raman spectrometer onboard the MMX rover which will be part of JAXAs Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission. The mission will be launched in 2024 and the Raman Spectrometer for MMX (RAX) instrument is designed to investigate the surface mineralogy of the Martian moon Phobos, according to the top-level science objectives of the MMX...

The payload of Philae, the Rosetta lander, included the instrument COSAC, an evolved gas analyser with the capability to differentiate chiral molecules. Philae landed on 67P on November 12, 2014. After the touchdown, as the anchoring harpoons, which were expected to fix the lander to ground, did not work, Philae bounced in the low gravity environme...

HERA is an ESA mission that, if selected, will be launched towards the Didymos binary asteroid system in 2023 while the NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft will impact on Didymos’ moon, Didy- moon, in 2022. HERA will perform a detailed post DART-impact survey. It aims to characterize physical and dynamical properties of Didymo...

Hera is an ESA mission of opportunity whose primary objective is to observe and validate the outcome of a kinetic impactor deflection test on a Near-Earth Asteroid, thus providing valuable information for future mitigation capabilities. Hera is part of the international Asteroid Impact & Deflection Assessment (AIDA) mission, together with NASA’s Do...

HERA is a candidate ESA mission that will be launched to Didymos binary asteroid system in 2023. It will perform a detailed post-impact survey of the smaller of the two bodies, Didymoon, following the kinetic impact by the NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) planned in 2022. DART and Hera were conceived together as part of the internatio...

We present quick-look results and constraints on the mechanical properties of the regolith on asteroid 162173 Ryugu, based on expected data regarding the mechanical interactions by the lander MASCOT as well as data from MINERVA nano-landers and possibly from the first sampling touchdown by Hayabusa2. MASCOT is going to be deployed from an altitude...

On the 12th of November 2014, the Rosetta Philae Lander descended to make the first soft touchdown on the surface of a comet – comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. That soft touchdown did occur but due to the failure in the firing of its two harpoons, Philae bounced and travelled across the comet making contact with the surface twice more before fina...

An engineering mission OKEANOS to explore a Jupiter Trojan asteroid, using a Solar Power Sail is currently under study. After a decade-long cruise, it will rendezvous with the target asteroid, conduct global mapping of the asteroid from the spacecraft, and in situ measurements on the surface, using a lander. Science goals and enabling instruments o...

The scientific objectives of the 2020 ExoMars rover mission are to search for traces of past or present life and to characterise the near-sub surface. Both objectives require study of the rock/regolith materials in terms of structure, textures, mineralogy, and elemental and organic composition. The 2020 ExoMars rover payload consists of a suite of...

In the frame of Near-Earth-Object exploration and planetary defence, the two-part AIDA mission is currently studied by NASA and ESA. Being composed of a kinetic impactor, DART (NASA), and by an observing spacecraft, AIM (ESA), AIDA has been designed to deliver vital data to determine the momentum transfer efficiency of a kinetic impact onto a small...

Philae is a comet Lander, part of the ESA Rosetta Mission to comet 67P/ChuryumovGerasimenko. After a ten year cruise through the solar system it successfully landed on the nucleus of the comet on November 12, 2014. Philae's payload consists of ten scientific instruments, including COSAC, an evolved gas analyser with the capability to differentiate...

OKEANOS (Oversize Kite-craft for Exploration and AstroNautics in the Outer Solar system) is the future mission under study to cruise to the outer solar system using a large-area solar power sail, and to rendezvous with and land on a Jupiter Trojan asteroid for in-depth study there. Jupiter Trojans are the key targets to be explored, because they ar...

MASCOT (’Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout’) is a 10 kg mobile surface science package on-board JAXA’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft, which, by July 2018, will have reached the near-Earth Asteroid (162173) Ryugu. MASCOT has been developed by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in cooperation with the Centre National d’Etudes Spaciales (CNES). The concept of MASCO...

The CORSAIR (COmet Rendezvous, Sample Acquisition, Investigation, and Return) mission was a proposal for the NASA New Frontiers program. It belongs to the Comet Surface Sample Return mission theme which focuses on acquiring and returning to Earth a macroscopic sample from the surface of a comet nucleus. CORSAIR uses a harpoon-based Sample Acquisiti...

MASCOT (‘Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout’) is a 10 kg mobile surface science package on board JAXA’s Hayabusa2 sample return mission, currently on its way to the near-Earth asteroid (162173) Ryugu. The mission was launched in December 2014 from Tanegashima Space Center, Japan. The Hayabusa2 spacecraft will reach the target asteroid in summer 2018. Ha...

In the scope of European Space Agency's Rosetta mission, the COmet Nucleus Sounding Experiment by Radio wave Transmission (CONSERT) has sounded the deep interior of the nucleus of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The CONSERT experiment main objective was to image the interior of the comet nucleus. This bi-static radar experiment with instrument uni...

The SPS-OKEANOS (Outsized Kitecraft for Exploration and AstroNautics in the Outer Solar system) is under study in Japan to rendezvous with and land on a Jupiter Trojan asteroid [1]. It is primarily an engineering mission to demonstrate advanced space technology but also to conduct key science for understanding the solar system origin and evolution...

Philae is a comet Lander, part of the ESA Rosetta Mission to comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. After a ten year cruise through the solar system it successfully landed on the nucleus of the comet on November 12th, 2014. Philae´s payload consists of ten scientific instruments [1], including COSAC, an evolved gas analyser with the capability to differe...