One-year Deep Space Flight Result of the World's First Full-scale 50kg-class Deep Space Probe PROCYON and Its Future Perspective

One-year Deep Space Flight Result of the World's First Full-scale 50kg-class Deep Space Probe PROCYON and Its Future Perspective

This paper presents the development and initial operation results of 50kg-class deep space exploration micro-spacecraft PROCYON (Proximate Object Close flYby with Optical Navigation), which was jointly developed by the University of Tokyo and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The primary mission of PROCYON is the demonstration of 50kg-class deep space exploration bus system including the demonstration of high-efficiency GaN-based SSPA (Solid State Power Amplifier) for communication and high-precision navigation by a novel DDOR (Delta Differential One-way Range) observation method. PROCYON also has some secondary advanced missions, which are deep space flight to a Near-earth asteroid and high resolution observation of the asteroid during close and fast flyby, and the wide view scientific observation of geocorona by a Lyman alpha imager from a vantage point outside of the geocoronal distribution. PROCYON was developed with very low cost (a few million dollars) and within very short period (about 1 year), taking advantage of the heritage from Japanese Earth-orbiting micro satellite missions. PROCYON was launched into an Earth departure trajectory together with Japanese second asteroid sample return spacecraft Hayabusa-2 on December 3, 2014, and it has achieved its primary mission and some of the secondary missions.