Optical Observations of BepiColombo Spacecraft as a Proxy for a Potential Threatening Asteroid

BepiColombo is a joint mission between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXAFormed in 2003, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) was born through the merger of three institutions, namely the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS), the National Aerospace Laboratory of Japan (NAL) and the National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA). JAXA performs various activities related to aerospace, from basic research in the aerospace field to development and utilization and is responsible for research, technology development, and launch of satellites into orbit, and is involved in advanced missions such as asteroid exploration and possible human exploration of the Moon.”>JAXA) designed to study the planet Mercury. Launched in late 2018, its complex trajectory involved a fly-by past Earth on April 10, 2020. We took advantage of the event to organize a coordinated observing campaign. The main goal was to compute and compare the observed fly-by orbit properties with the values available from the Mission Control. The method we designed could then be improved for future observation campaigns targeting natural objects that may collide with our planet.

The incoming trajectory of the probe limited the ground-based observability to only a few hours, around the time when it was closest to Earth. The network of telescopes we used has been developed by ESA’s NEO Coordination Centre (NEOCC) with capabilities to quickly observe imminent impactors, thus presenting similar orbits. Our team successfully acquired the target with various instruments such as the 6ROADS Chilean telescope, the 1.0 m Zadko telescope in Australia, the ISON network of telescopes, and the 1.2 m Kryoneri telescope in Corinthia, Greece.

The observations were difficult due to the object’s extremely fast angular motion in the sky. At one point, the telescopes saw the probe covering twice the size of the moon in the sky each minute. This challenged the tracking capabilities and timing accuracyHow close the measured value conforms to the correct value.”>accuracy of the telescopes. Each telescope was moving at the predicted instantaneous speed of the target while taking images, “tracking” the spacecraft. Field stars appeared as trails, while BepiColombo itself was a point source, but only if the observation started exactly at the right moment. Because the probe was moving so fast, any date errors of the telescope images translate into position errors of the probe. To reach a precise measurement of 0.1 meters, the date of the images needed to have a precision of 100 milliseconds.

The final results were condensed into two measurable quantities that could be directly compared with the Mission Control ones, the perigee distance, and the time of the probe’s closest approach to Earth. Both numbers were perfectly matched, proving our method a success: it calculated a more accurate prediction of BepiColombo’s orbit; it also provided valuable insights for future observations of objects colliding with Earth:

• A purely optical observing campaign can provide trajectory information during a fly-by at sub-kilometer and sub-second levels of precision.
• A similar campaign would lead to a sub-kilometer and sub-second precision for the time and location of the atmospheric entry of any colliding object.
• Timing accuracy below 100 milliseconds is crucial for the closest observations.
• It’s possible to organize astrometric campaigns with coverage from nearly every continent.

Written by OzGrav researcher Dr. Bruce Gendre, University of Western Australia.