Asteroid Impact Mission: a Possible Approach to Design Effective Close Proximity Operations to Release Mascot-2 Lander

The paper presents the design of the landing strategy, during close proximity operations of ESA's Asteroid Impact Mission. The target of the mission is the binary asteroid system 65803 Didymos and the objective of this work is to investigate design opportunities to land a small and passive probe on the smaller asteroid of the couple. The dynamics of the spacecraft in the proximity of the binary system is naturally modeled using a three-body problem formulation. The landing requirements are highlighted and a suitable strategy is selected, by conveniently exploiting three-body dynamics. Uncertainties in release and touch down conditions are modeled to guarantee the robustness of the chosen solution to achieve successful landing.