Context for the MASCOT Lander on Hayabusa-2 — The MASCOT-CAM

A small lander, MASCOT, is being developed at DLR (German Aerospace Center), with contributions from CNES, for JAXA’s HAYABUSA-2 mission. MASCOT will carry a multispectral imager (MASCOT-Cam), provided by DLR’s Institute of Planetary Research

Surface morphology at the Pathfinder landing site

The morphology of the Pathfinder landing site shows small elongated ridges. These ridges extend to the horizon. Within a radius of app. 100 m the Imager for Pathfinder (IMP) camera provided stereoscopic information. Photogrammetric analysis of images were carried out to obtain a digital terrain model and to map ridges and throughs within this radius. Panoramic images were inspected on stereoscopic screens to help in indentificiation of ridge crests by the human eye. Coordinates have been measured for about 2000 ridge crest points. Ridges were found to have wavelengths of about 10-20 m and elevations of 1-3 m on average. Maps of the ridge crest points show that ridges and troughs are generally oriented from SW to NE, with minor lineaments oriented from S to N and SE to NW. The dominant SW to NE, with minor lineaments oriented from S to N and NW to SE directions fit with main orientations of Ares Vallis. These three directions of material transportation at the end of Ares and Tiu Valles can be identified in Viking Orbiter images by those streamlined islands which have been eroded by both channels. Crater counts show Ares Vallis to be older than Tiu Vallis. Tiu Vallis material has to some extent modified the pre-existing Ares Vallis materials but the last deposition was the major geological process in this area

The Solar System Information System - Design and Application

The Solar System Information System (SOLIS), is a research tool being developed for use by scientists in order to help them to determine the geographical extent, temporal nature, and quality of planetary data, and also for the testing of simple scientific hypotheses against a set of knowledge about a planet. We present an overview of our design to date, describing some important aspects concerning the storage of information about images, and the compact and efficient access to planetary cartographic raster data. We also describe a bibliographic facility. Finally we present two example applications of our system