Apr 15, 2019

The mission’s Detailed Survey: Baseball Diamond phase operations continue. Each week during this phase the spacecraft executes a flyby of Bennu at a different observing angle.

On April 11 and 12, the spacecraft performed Flyby 6, which mirrored Flyby 5’s operations but with the hemispheres reversed. For Flyby 5, the spacecraft flew north-to-south, and then reversed directions (an unusual operation in spaceflight, given the microgravity environment around Bennu)  for a south-to-north pass for Flyby 6.

During Flyby 6, the spacecraft observed Bennu with PolyCam, OLA and OTES at the 12:30 pm local solar time position. The pass was divided into two phases – A and B. Flyby 6A occurred over Bennu’s southern hemisphere at a distance of 5 km, and the spacecraft slewed east, west and straight down to image every 12° of Bennu’s rotation. Flyby 6B occurred over Bennu’s northern hemisphere at a distance of 3.06 km, and the spacecraft slewed east to image every 6° of Bennu’s rotation. These observations support the development of the 35-cm Stereo Photoclinometry (SPC) and 75-cm OLA shape models, the production of global image mosaics and the identification and cataloging of features for Natural Feature Tracking (NFT).