Fast estimation of asteroid shape and motion for spacecraft navigation

Akira Tanimoto, Naoya Takeishi, Takehisa Yairi, Yuichi Tsuda, Fuyuto Terui, Naoko Ogawa, Yuya Mimasu

Abstract: In this paper, we consider fast simultaneous estimation problem of the geometric shape of the asteroid and the relative motion of the spacecraft. In asteroid exploration missions, the information of asteroid shape and motion is needed to find suitable landing sites and navigate the spacecraft safely. In the previous HAYABUSA mission, large part of the estimation was performed manually by ground operators. We propose an efficient automatic estimation method using the image feature matching and matrix decomposition based fast 3D reconstruction techniques. Preliminary experiment results are also shown.