Article ID Journal Published Year Pages File Type
1771820 Chinese Astronomy and Astrophysics 2014 9 Pages PDF
Abstract

For the Chang’e-2 extended mission of asteroid exploration, the illumination conditions for imaging the asteroid Toutatis are calculated in this paper according to the orbital parameters of both the Chang’e-2 detector and the asteroid, as well as the incident angles of sunlight. On this basis, it is suggested to take photographs after flyby, and the orientation of the camera's optical axis in the coordinate system deflned by Earth's mean equator and equinox at J2000.0 is proposed to be (118.02°, 22.03°). Based on the shape model of Toutatis determined by the foreign radar data, the orientation of the asteroid in the inertial space is calculated at the rendezvous time. Using the Oren-Nayar diffuse-reflection model and the relative positions among the sun, the asteroid, and the detector, together with the cameras orientation, the imaging simulations are performed on the starry sky background respectively at the distances of 300 km, 500 km, and 1000 km from the asteroid after flyby. The results of simulations are verified further by the optical images of Toutatis obtained in the mission.

Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering Physics and Astronomy Astronomy and Astrophysics