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Contribution of the Yoshioka Laboratory to the Comet Interceptor Mission

This mission targets long-period comets (or interstellar objects) and utilises simultaneous multi-point observations to observe comet nuclei and comet comas. While waiting at the Sun-Earth Lagrange point (L2 point), the mission will identify unknown celestial bodies within reach, conduct ground-based observations, and wait up to 3–4 years. To conduct multi-point observations, a flyby of the target celestial body will be performed using a multi-spacecraft configuration consisting of a mother spacecraft and two ultra-small probes (sub-spacecraft).

 

Fig. 1
Sketch of the Comet Interceptor flyby, not to scale. Spacecraft A will pass furthest from the nucleus, with probes B1 and B2 passing closer. Both probes will relay their data in real time to be stored on spacecraft A for later transmission (Jones et al., 2024)

 

Yoshioka Lab. currently develops a small UV imager, named HI (Hydrogen Imager), to observe the hydrogen coma of a long-period comet.

 

Fig. 25
Design overview of HI (Jones et al., 2024)