PROCYON

Spacecraft nº:

Japanese spacecraft nº: 210

Launch data: Designation  40322 / 14076D Launch date  03 Dec 2014 - 04:22 UT Launch site  Tanegashima, YLP-1 Launch vehicle  H-2A-202 Mission  experimental asteroid fly-by probe Earth orbit: Perigee / Apogee  245 x -50912 km Eccentricity   Inclination   29.9° Period   min

Spacecraft data:

Description:

• PROCYON (Proximate Object Close flyby with Optical Navigation) is an experimental asteroid fly-by probe developed by JAXA. The probe with a mass of only 59 kg will perform an close fly-by to an asteroid by using optical navigation. Two more asteroid fly-bys are planned.
• Demonstration of micro-spacecraft bus system for deep space exploration including communication system and attitude and orbit control system. It will also demonstrate various deep space exploration technologies including asteroid close flyby observation.

Mission details:

• PROCYON was launched by the H-IIA Launch Vehicle No. 26 as a secondary payload of the Asteroid Explorer "Hayabusa2" at 1:22:04 p.m. on Dec. 3, 2014 (JST) from the Tanegashima Space Center.
• The University of Tokyo and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) received signals from the Micro deep-space explorer "PROCYON" at 8:51 p.m. on December 3, 2014 (Japan Standard Time), to confirm it had been inserted into the scheduled interplanetary orbit. The satellite is now in the initial operation phase.
• May 2015: The Japanese PROCYON mission's plan to perform an Earth swingby followed by flyby of asteroid 2000 DP107 has been abandoned following malfunction of its ion engine.
  The probe, in solar orbit, may continue to make scientific measurements with its ultraviolet camera. Procyon was originally in a 0.9 x 1.1 AU x 6.8 deg solar orbit but It is not sure how much this was changed by its 3 months of ion engine operation.